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TUFTS   UNIVERSITY   LIBRARIES 


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Webster  Famiiy  Library  of  Veterinary  FVledicin 
Cummings  School  of  Veterinary/  Medicine  at 
Tufts  University 

90f\  \Mp^hnm  Rn^rl 


The 
American   Foxhound 


TREATING  OF  THE 

BREEDING,  REARING  AND  TRAINING  OF  THE  BREED 

AND  EMBRACING  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  ORIGIN  AND 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  VARIOUS  STRAINS 


BY 


DR.  A.  C.  HEFFENGER,  T.  H.  BROWN,  A.  B.  WHITLOCK 

W.  N.  RAMSEY,  W.  H.  LUTTRELL,  O.  L.  HENNIGAN 

C.  FLOYD  HUFF,  J.  C.  BENTLEY,  W.  I.  SPEARS 

DR.  W.  F.  STURGILL,  H.  E.  C.  BRYANT 

AND  OTHERS 


COMPILED  BY 

THURSTON  J.  ROSTAI) 


ILLUSTRATED 


SPRING  VALLEY,   WISCONSIN 

THURSTON  J.   ROSTAD 

1905 


:,a 


a-1 


PREFACE. 


The  absence  of  a  book  on  the  American  Foxhound,  devoted  to 
the  notable  strains  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  the  wide- 
spread and  increasing  interest  and  popularity  of  the  breed,  has 
induced  the  publisher,  with  the  generous  aid  of  some  of  our  best 
known  foxliound  men,  to  compile  and  place  a  work  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  hunting  world  embodying  not  only  the  ideas  of  indi- 
vidual hunting  men,  but  concrete  facts,  the  consensus  of  opinion 
of  the  entire  American  field. 

The  breeding  and  hunting  of  foxliounds  by  the  sportsmen  of 
America  dates  from  the  earliest  settlement  of  the  continent,  but 
it  has  been  done  individually,  resulting  in  the  development  of 
many  excellent  stmins  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  section  of  the 
country  hunted,  and  histories  of  these  strains  from  able  pens 
have  been  secured.  The  work,  however,  of  harmonizing  them 
and  typifying  and  standardizing  an  ideal  foxhound  properly 
qualified  for  the  varying  needs  of  the  country  at  large  was  left 
to  the  National  Foxhunters'  Association  and  the  Brunswick 
Foxliound  Club.  Both  of  tliese  clubs  hold  annual  foxliound  field 
trials,  and  the  same  system  of  judging  is  used  to  obtain  uni- 
formity of  opinion.  The  annual  hound  show  of  the  Brunswick 
Foxliound  Club  is  the  only  one  in  the  country,  and  sets  the 
standard  for  the  American  Kennel  Club  shows,  so  that  from 
Boston  to  San  Francisco  the  same  type  wins. 

It  is  all  these  facts  we  have  striven  to  lay  before  our  hunting 
readers,  to  assist  them  in  breeding,  training,  hunting  and 
showing  the  up-to-date  American  Foxhound;  and  if  we  have 
succeeded  in  any  degree,  we  will  be  more  than  compensated  for 
the  labor  of  compilation. 
Spring  Valley,  Wisconsin,  October,  1905. 

THURSTON  J.   ROSTAD. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  FIRST. 

AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  STANDARD. 

PAGE. 

American  Foxhound  Standard 1 


PART  SECOND. 

BREEDING,  REARING  AND  TRAINING. 
Breeding  and  Training  Foxhounds,  Dr.  W.  F.  Sturgill.     3 

Breeding,  Rearing  and  Training, W.  N.  Ramsey.     6 

Breeding,  Raising  and  Training  Foxhounds,  T.  H.  Brown.     7 
Hounds,  Rabbits  and  Foxes,  (Excerpt). .  .F.  W.  Samuels.  10 

Breeding,  Rearing  and  Training, O.  L.  Hennigan.  11 

Raising  and  Training  Foxhounds, W.  I.  Spears.  16 


PART  THIRD. 

HISTORY  OF  NOTED   STRINS. 

The  Buckfield  Foxhounds, Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger.  IT 

The  Goodman  Foxhounds, W.  O.  Goodman.  20 

The  Byron  Strain, Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger.  23 

The  Maryland  Hound, John  C.  Bentley.  26 

The  Sugar  Loaf  Foxhound, H.  E.  C.  Bryant.  30 

The  Trigg  Strain, H.  0.  Trigg.  36 

BiRDSONG  AND  Maupin  Dogs, H.  C.  Trigg.  39 

The  July  Strain, W.  H.  Luttrell.  41 

History  of  the  July  Foxhound,.  .  .Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger.  44 

The  Robertson  Strain, S.  S.  Fizer.  47 

The  Walker  Strain, Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger.  50 

The  Whitlock  Strain,  E.  H.  Howard  and  A.  B.  Whitlock.  51 

The  Arkansas  Traveller  Strain, 0.  Floyd  Huff.  54 

The  Cook  Strain, Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger.  56 

The  Avent  Strain, Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger.  59 

The  Wild  Goose  Strain, Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger.  60 


PART  FOURTH. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Dr.  a.  C.  Heffenger's  "Joe  Forester."    Ad>iiral  James  E. 

Jouett's  "Lotta."    Mr.  O.  F.  Joslin's  "Ranger."    Mr.  O.  F. 

Joslin's  "Callie  I."    Judge  C.  Floyd  Huff's  "Major  Rock." 

Judge  O.  Floyd  Huff's  "Dude." 


PART  I. 


AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  STANDARD. 


THE 
AMERICAN   FOXHOUND. 


AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  STANDARD. 

This  standard  for  judging  American  foxliounds  was  formu- 
lated by  Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger,  Col.  Roger  D.  Williams,  Messrs. 
W.  S.  Walker,  W.  C.  Goodman,  F.  J.  Hagan,  W.  Wade  and 
H.  O.  Trigg,  and  was  adopted  by  the  Brunswick  Foxhound  Club 
on  April  17,  1894. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Club  held  on  January  18,  1905,  it  was 
voted  that  this  standard  be  construed  to  call  for  that  type  of 
hound  which  shows  "class,"  meaning  thereby  the  highest  per- 
centage of  conformation  needed  in  foxhounds  for  field  use  in 
America. 


The  American  foxliound  should  be  smaller  and  lighter  in 
muscle  and  bone,  than  the  English  foxhound.  Dogs  should  not 
be  under  21  nor  over  'Z'dK  inches,  nor  weigh  more  than  57 
pounds.  Bitches  should  not  be  under  20  nor  over  22  lo  inches 
nor  weigh  more  than  50  pounds. 

The  head  (value  15)  should  be  of  medium  size  with  muzzle  in 
harmonious  proportions. 

The  skull  should  be  rounded  cross- wise  with  a  slight  peak, 
line  of  profile  nearly  straight,  with  sufficient  stop  to  give 
symmetry  to  the  head. 

Ears  should  meet  to  within  one  inch  of  end  of  muzzle,  should 
be  thin,  soft  in  coat,  low  set  and  closely  pendant. 

Eyes  soft,  medium  size,  and  varying  shades  of  brown. 
Nostrils  slightly  expanded.  The  head  as  a  whole  should  denote 
hound  character. 

The  neck  (value  5)  must  be  clean  and  of  good  length,  slightly 
arched,  strong  where  it  springs  from  the  shoulders  and  gradual- 
ly tapering  to  the  head,  without  trace  of  throatiness. 

The  shoulders  (value  10)  must  be  of  sufficient  length  to  give 
leverage  and  power,  well  sloped,  muscular,  but  with  clean  run 
and  not  too  broad. 


2  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

Chest  and  back  ribs  (value  10).  The  chest  should  be  deep  for 
lung  space,  narrower  in  proportion  to  depth  than  the  English 
hound,  28  inches  in  a  23^4  i^^h  hound  being  good.  Well  sprung 
ribs,  back  ribs  should  extend  well  back,  a  three  inch  flank  al- 
lowing springiness. 

Back  and  loin  (value  10)  should  be  broad,  short  and  strong, 
slightly  arched. 

The  hindquarters  and  lower  thighs  (value  10)  must  be  well 
muscled  and  very  strong.  The  stifle  should  be  low  set,  not  too 
much  bent,  nor  yet  too  straight,  a  happy  medium. 

The  elbows  (value  5)  should  set  straight,  neither  in  nor  out. 
Legs  and  feet  (value  20)  are  of  great  importance.  Legs  should 
be  straight  and  placed  squarely  under  shoulder,  having  plenty  of 
bone  witnout  clumsiness,  strong  pasterns  well  stood  upon.  Feet 
round,  cat-like,  not  too  large,  toes  well  knuckled,  close  and 
compact,  strong  nails,  pad  thick,  tough  and  indurated  by  use. 

Color  and  coat  (value  5).  Black,  white  and  tan  are  preferable, 
thougii  the  solids  and  various  pies  are  permissible.  Coat  should 
be  rough  and  coarse  without  being  wiry  or  shaggy. 

Symmetry  (value  5).  The  form  of  the  hound  should  be  har- 
monious throughout.  He  should  show  his  blood  quality  and 
hound  character  in  every  aspect  and  movement.  If  he  scores 
high  in  other  properties,  symmetry  is  bound  to  follow\ 

The  stern  (value  5)  must  be  strong  in  bone  at  the  root,   of 

medium  length,  carried  like  a  sabre  on  line  with  the  spine  and 

must  have  a  good  brush.     A  docked  stern  shall  not  disqualify, 

but  simply  handicap  according  to  extent  of  docking. 

SUMMARY. 

Head,  -         ...  15 

Neck,  -         -         .         .  5 

Shoulders,  -         -         -  10 

Chest  and  back  ribs,  -  10 

Hindquarters  and  low^er  thighs,  10 

Back  and  Loin,  -         -  10 

Elbows,  ...  5 

Legs  and  feet,  -         -         20 

Color  and  coat,  -         -  5 

Stem,  -         -         -         -  5 

Symmetry,  .         .         .  5 

Total,  ....       100 


PART  11. 


BREEDING,  REARING  AND  TRAINING. 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  3 

BREEDING  AND  TRAINING  FOXHOUNDS. 
By  W.  F.  Sturgill,  M.  D.,  Ceredo,  W.  Va. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning,  tbe  training  of  foxliounds,  as  with 
all  other  breeds  of  dogs  of  which  much  is  expected,  should  start 
several  generations  prior  to  their  birth,  i.  e.,  no  time  should  be 
wasted  on  hounds  whose  ancestors  for  at  least  three  generations 
back  have  not  been  good  performers  in  the  field.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  develop  a  high -class  foxhound  by  any  amount  of  training 
if  descended  from  worthless  ancestors.  "What  I  consider  a  well- 
bred  foxhound — one  worth  training-^is  a  hound  whose  every 
ancestor  for  not  less  than  four  generations  back,  and  the  farther 
back  the  better,  was  a  game,  reliable  runner.  Some  may  not 
have  been  as  fast  or  as  wide  hunters  as  one  would  desire,  but  all 
must  have  been  game.  Gameness,  as  I  see  it,  is  the  one  great 
essential  without  which  no  foxliound  is  worth  the  straw  he 
sleeps  on,  and  I  might  add  here  I  have  seen  the  blood  of  one 
quitter  render  worthless  a  majority  of  otherwise  beautifully 
bred  hounds  for  a  number  of  generations.  Some  breeders  of  fox- 
hounds liken  the  breeding  of  hounds  to  the  breeding  of  race- 
horses, claiming  that  a  well-bred  hound  as  is  sometimes  the  case 
with  a  well-bred  horse,  although  a  poor  performer  himself,  may 
produce  high-class  offspring.  I  agree  that  this  sometimes 
happens,  but  as  a  rule,  especially  with  the  foxliound,  the  reverse 
may  be  expected.  Were  the  conditions  under  which  they  per- 
form similar,  and  the  handling  of  the  two  the  same,  then  one 
might  be  justified  in  applying  the  same  rule  in  breeding,  but 
such  is  not  the  case  as  all  must  agree.  Given  a  horse  with  suf- 
ficient speed  and  endurance  it  is  possible  to  force  him  to  make  a 
creditable  race  by  the  free  application  of  the  whip  and  spur,  but 
not  so  with  the  foxliound.  If  there  is  any  method  by  which  a 
hound  can  be  induced  to  run  when  he  doesn't  want  to  I  have 
never  discovered  it.  The  whip  and  spur  cannot  be  brought  into 
play  with  anything  but  disastrous  results  with  the  foxhound. 
If  he  does  not  want  to  he  won't,  and  that  is  the  end  to  it.  So 
much  then  on  the  training  of  foxliounds  before  they  are 
whelped. 

Puppies  should  be  fed  well  and  given  plenty  of  exercise  in  the 
open  air,  that  they  may  grow  strong  and  rugged,  and  when  six 
months  old  they  should  be  allowed  to  follow  the  trainer  about 
the  neighborhood  over  which  they  are  expected  to  hunt  later  on. 


4  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

They  will  thus  become  familiar  with  the  country  and  learn  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  They  should  have  been  taught  by  this 
time  to  come  to  the  horn,  which  can  be  done  in  a  few  lessons  by 
blowing  a  few  blasts  when  starting  out  for  exercise,  or  at 
feeding  time.  The  horn  should  never  be  used  except  when  it 
means  something.  Some  hunters  keep  up  an  almost  continuous 
tooting  of  the  horn.  This  I  consider  very  objectionable,  as  the 
liounds  sooner  or  later  are  apt  to  reach  a  point  where  they  pay 
no  attention  to  it.  When  the  trainer  is  moving  and  the  hounds 
are  casting  about  the  country  for  a  trail,  an  occasional  blast 
from  the  horn  may  be  given  that  the  hounds  may  know  the 
direction  the  trainer  is  taking.  As  the  puppies  grow  older  and 
stronger  they  should  be  taken  over  a  wider  territory  until  they 
liave  become  familiar  with  the  country  over  which  they  will 
soon  be  expected  to  run.  If  this  is  done  young  dogs  are  not  apt 
to  get  lost  when  hunting,  as  is  almost  sure  to  occur  when  inex- 
perienced hounds  are  hunted  in  a  strange  neighborhood.  In  this 
way  a  great  deal  of  trouble  and  worry  may  be  averted,  as  all 
ti-ainers  have  more  or  less  experience  looking  up  lost  puppies, 
some  of  which  are  never  found. 

When  eight  or  nine  months  old  their  training  on  gray  foxes  or 
a  drag  may  begin.  This  should  be  done  with  a  pack  of  trained 
liounds  not  too  fast.  If  a  drag  is  to  be  used  it  should  be  a  fresh 
fox  hide,  and  experience  has  taught  the  writer  that  this  is  a  very 
satisfactory  way  by  which  to  start  puppies  to  running.  It 
should  be  dragged  in  circles  about  as  a  fox  would  run.  A  great 
many  trained  hounds  will  not  run  a  drag,  but  in  a  pack  there 
will  generally  be  found  one  or  more  that  will,  and  these  should 
be  taken  out  with  the  puppies.  They  should  have  from  one  to 
tliree  hours  of  this  kind  of  work  two  or  three  times  a  week. 
Quite  a  number  of  fox-hunters  advocate  the  training  of  puppies 
on  rabbits,  but  I  think  the  gray  fox  or  drag  (fox  liide)  preferable, 
as  breaking  young  hounds  from  chasing  rabbits,  when  the  time 
comes  to  train  them  on  foxes,  is  usually  the  most  difficult  task 
and  trying  experience  the  trainer  will  encounter  in  training  a 
pack  of  young  hounds.  True  a  small  minority  will  stop  chasing 
rabbits  of  their  own  accord  as  soon  as  they  become  familiar  with 
tlie  scent  of  a  fox,  but  the  vast  majority  will  give  all  kinds  of 
trouble  till  they  are  two  or  even  three  years  old.  But  I  have 
found  that  if  given  their  first  lesson  on  foxes — or  fox  hide — they 
i-arely  care  to  chase  rabbits  ever  afterward. 


THE  AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  5 

Here  I  sliall  mention  an  iron -clad  rale  which  should  never  be 
ignored  by  trainers  of  foxhounds.  The  puppies  should  grow  up 
with  the  trained  hounds  with  which  they  are  to  receive  their 
first  lessons,  no  matter  what  scent  they  are  to  be  trained  to 
follow.  Puppies  will  not  go  in  a  chase  with  a  strange  pack  and 
try  to  keep  with  that  pack.  They  should  be  thoroughly  ac- 
qainted  with  the  older  hounds,  and  they  may  then  be  expected 
to  do  their  utmost  to  keep  with  their  old  friends.  I  have  known 
would-be  fox-hunters  to  pronounce  the  death  sentence  on  beauti- 
fully br^d  young  foxhounds  because  they  would  not  go  to  a 
strange  pack  and  run  the  first  time  taken  to  the  woods!  How^ 
little  such  men  know  of  "dogology." 

When  a  year  old  young  hounds  should  be  put  to  work  with  a 
good  pack  of  trained  hounds  on  the  red  fox.  If  the  youngster 
has  been  worked  on  gray  foxes  or  fox  hide  he  will,  as  a  i-ule,  be 
of  little  trouble  at  this  stage  of  the  game,  but  if  he  has  put  in 
several  months  of  his  life  chasing  rabbits,  the  trainer's  life  may 
be  expected  to  become  a  burden  for  the  next  year  or  two.  From 
now  on  the  young  hounds  should  be  given  from  one  to  three 
chases  a  week,  all  depending  on  how  they  stand  up  to  the  work. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  no  man  can  have  a  high -class  fox- 
hound unless  he  gives  him  plenty  of  work  in  the  field.  A  well 
matured  pack  should  be  run  not  less  than  three  chases  a  week. 
Hunting  and  running  the  fox  will  develop  them  and  nothing  else 
will.  The  trainer  should  stay  with  his  hounds  until  the  running 
is  over,  and  bring  them  in  with  him,  otherwise  enthusiastic 
young  hounds  will  frequently  remain  out  hunting  and  running 
two  or  three  days. 


BREEDING,  REARING  AND  TRAINING. 
By  W.  N.  Ramsey,  Winchester,  Ky. 

The  breeding,  rearing  and  training  of  foxhounds  is  like  most 
all  other  undertakings,  one  in  which  almost  every  hunter  and 
handler  has  his  own  ideas,  and  those  ideas  at  variance  with 
those  of  all  others  to  a  more  or  less  extent. 

Having  owned  a  pack  of  foxliounds  ever  since  1866,  many  of 
which  I  have  bred,  reared,  trained  and  run  during  that  time,  I 
have  of  course  adopted  a  rule  or  rules  for  my  own  government 
in  handling  the  hound  from  his  infancy  up  to  maturity. 


6  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

In  order  to  produce  a  good  hound,  such  as  are  wanted  by  all 
lovers  of  the  chase,  they  must  first  be  properly  bred;  to  do  this  I 
always  select  a  bitcli  of  good  avei-age  size,  of  good  style  and 
formation,  one  whose  breeding  is  first-class  in  every  respect, 
whose  qualities  as  a  hunter,  trailer,  tonguer,  speed  and  en- 
durance would  satisfy  the  most  exacting  huntsman ;  besides  this 
I  want  to  know  that  her  ancestors  were  of  the  same  quality. 
The  bitch  should  be  mated  to  a  dog  possessing  all  of  the  above 
mentioned  qualities;  when  this  is  done  we  may  have  a  right  to 
expect  the  progeny  to  develop  into  dogs  of  the  desired  kind,  pro- 
vided they  are  properly  handled  from  their  puppyhood  to 
maturity. 

Puppies  should  be  kept  in  good,  strong,  growing  condition, 
but  not  overfed,  nor  crowded  too  much  in  their  growth;  they 
should  never  be  burdened  with  flesh,  as  I  have  known  dogs  to 
develop  spning  legs  caused  by  carrying  too  much  weight  when 
quite  young  while  their  joints  were  soft  and  watery.  Puppies 
should  not  be  confined  to,  nor  raised  in  a  kennel  if  it  can  be 
avoided;  they  should  have  room  to  get  out  and  play  around,  and 
take  all  the  exercise  necessary,  as  liberty  and  exercise  is  con- 
ducive to  their  health.  I  have  always  had  my  pups  raised  out  in 
the  country,  so  that  as  they  grow  up  they  become  accustomed  to 
stock  of  all  kinds.  They  are  permitted  to  run  rabbits  at  their 
pleasure.  By  running  them  their  feet  and  muscles  become 
hardened  and  toughened,  their  lungs  develop  better,  and  of 
course  their  powers  of  endurance  are  developed  in  proportion  to 
the  chances  they  have  had  for  development.  I  never  take  a 
hound  out  for  a  red  fox  chase  until  he  is  a  year  old,  as  I  feel  that 
until  then  they  have  not  sufficiently  developed  to  stand  the  wear 
and  tear  of  a  long  hard  contest  witli  aged  and  seasoned  dogs. 
During  the  fall,  winter  and  early  spring  seasons  many  red  foxes 
will  run  from  four  to  eight  or  ten  hours,  and  occasionally 
longer,  so  long  that  dogs  under  twelve  months  of  age  cannot 
stand  the  strain.  However  game  and  ambitious  they  may  be, 
they  will  tire  and  naturally  have  to  fall  behind.  If  game 
enough  they  will  follow  on  until  from  exliaustion  they  may 
possibly  have  to  quit  and  abandon  the  chase  altogether.  Then 
they  become  discouraged  to  a  certain  extent,  and  if  such  trials 
are  repeated  often  there  is  more  or  less  danger  of  making 
quitters  of  them,  or  at  least  dogs  that  will  become  reconciled  to 
run  behind.     If  gray  foxes  are  the  game  to  be  run,   then  the 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  7 

puppies  may  be  put  to  work  much  younger,  say  at  eight  months 
of  age,  as  the  grays  make  shorter  runs  and  more  sudden,  sliort 
and  sharp  angles,  consequently  the  trained  and  aged  dogs  make 
more  losses  or  overruns,  giving  the  youngsters  frequent  oppor- 
tunities to  catch  up  and  fall  in  line  again ;  neither  do  the  grays 
run  near  so  long  as  the  reds,  which  fact  is  in  favor  of  the 
puppies,  as  the  fox  has  either  been  caught  or  nin  to  earth  before 
they  are  completely  exhausted  or  worn  out.  Yet  even  after 
grays  I  think  it  best  not  to  run  the  puppies  when  too  young. 
My  plan  for  breaking  young  dogs  to  run  a  fox,  or  rather  to  keep 
them  from  running  i*abbits,  is  to  couple  them  together  and  lead 
them  the  hunting  ground  and  hold  them  until  tlie  broken  dogs 
strike  a  good  hot  trail,  or  run,  then  when  a  good  opportunity 
presents  itself,  turn  them  loose  as  near  as  possible  to  the 
working  dogs.  Repeat  this  until  they  have  had  two  or  three 
races,  after  which  they  are  not  likely  to  be  much  trouble  to  get 
into  the  chase.  They  should  never  be  punished  too  severely  for 
running  a  rabbit,  as  such  treatment  sometimes  ruins  a  fine 
prospect  for  the  making  of  a  good  hunter.  If  whipped  or  abused 
too  much  for  this  fault  some  of  them  will  become  timid  and 
afraid  to  get  out  to  hunt  or  run  anything;  at  the  same  time  a 
young  dog  should  never  be  petted  or  made  much  of  while  out 
hunting,  as  the  chances  are  that  they  may  become  too  affection- 
ate and  not  satisfied  to  stay  away  from  you  as  long  as  good  fox- 
hounds should.  As  a  rule  I  never  allow  any  of  my  dogs  to  come 
in  and  lie  around  me  while  others  are  at  work  after  a  fox ;  they 
must  either  go  to  the  dogs  that  are  at  work,  or  go  home.  By 
adopting  this  plan  they  can  soon  be  broke  from  loafing,  and  it  is 
often  the  means  of  making  a  good  foxhound  out  of  what  might 
have  become  a  worthless  dog.  I  love  an  industrious  hound,  but 
detest  a  loafer,  and  will  punish  one  quicker  for  the  latter  fault 
than  for  running  rabbits  while  on  a  fox-hunt. 


BREEDING,  RAISING  AND  TRAINING  FOXHOUNDS. 

By  T.  H.  Brown,  Huntsville,  Tex. 

The  breeding,  raising  and  training  of  foxhounds  is  a  matter  in 
which  a  great  many  sportsmen  differ  widely,  therefore  we  are 
forced  to  look  to  the  manner  adopted  by  those  who  have  proven 
most  successful  in  this  country. 


8  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

We  cannot  adopt  the  theories  of  our  English  brethren,  as  their 
style  of  hunting  is  entirely  different  from  ours,  with  few 
exceptions. 

In  England  they  breed  for  similarity  in  size  and  color,  equal 
speed,  and  good  "tongues."  They  as  a  rule  do  not  allow  their 
dogs  to  range  wide  in  quest  of  their  game,  but  have  an  M.  F.  H. 
who  rides  in  front  of  his  pack,  sometimes  numbering  as  high  as 
twenty-five  couples.  The  whipper-in  rides  behind  with  whip  in 
hand  and  sees  that  no  dog  attempts  scouting  on  his  own  hook. 
When  they  reach  a  promising  locality  (usually  termed  a 
"covert-side")  the  M.  F.  H.  by  command,  throws  his  pack  "in." 
If  game  is  found,  all  well  and  good,  if  not,  the  M.  F.  H.  sounds 
his  "call"  and  the  whipper-in  gets  busy.  Not  so  in  this  country, 
his  size  nor  color  cut  any  figure  if  he  is  able  "to  get  there"  and 
get  there  quick.  A  wide,  fast  ranger,  a  good  nose,  good  tongue, 
quick  to  cry  the  scent,  lots  of  endurance,  and  speed  enough  for 
any  company,  coupled  with  lots  of  "fox  sense,"  is  what  it  takes 
to  constitute  a  fox  dog  here ;  that  is  among  fox-hunters. 
BREEDING  THE  FOXHOUND. 

The  first  question  we  will  attempt  to  handle  is  the  breeding  of 
the  foxhound.  We  have  quite  a  number  of  different  strains  of 
foxliounds  in  this  country.  Each  of  these  several  strains  have 
their  admirers;  but  to  start  with,  every  hunter  must  admit  that 
you  must  know  the  sire  and  dam  of  your  pups. 

You  cannot  expect  to  rear  fast,  game  dogs  from  slow,  rank 
quitters,  for  according  to  the  rules  of  nature  "like  begets  like." 

Having  first  selected  your  bitch  to  breed  from,  you  should  be- 
come thoroughly  acquainted  with  her  best  points  as  well  as  her 
bad  ones,  for  you  will  never  find  a  perfect  one,  then  select  a  dog 
that  will  overcome  as  many  of  her  bad  traits  as  possible,  and 
breed  them.  If  you  fail  to  get  good  dogs  from  them,  do  not  get 
discouraged,  but  try  another  dog.  You  might  breed  a  dog  and 
bitch  that  you  thought  were  nearly  perfect,  and  yet  their  pups 
were  worthless.  This  is  an  exception  to  the  rule  of  nature,  they 
just  simply  did  not  nick  well. 

RAISING  PUPS. 

After  your  pups  have  come,  watch  your  bitch  well  and  see 
that  she  is  attentive  and  gives  them  plenty  of  milk.  Let  them 
depend  upon  their  mother  until  they  are  four  weeks  old,  then 
give  them  a  dose  of  vermifuge  (I  use  Glover's)  as  per  directions, 
then  start  to  feeding  them  on  a  very  light  diet.     There   is  no 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  9 

doubt  that  worms  kill  more  puppies  than  all  other  diseases 
combined. 

Never  allow  your  pups  to  go  until  their  mother  weans  them 
before  you  start  to  feeding,  if  you  do  the  results  will  often  prove 
disastrous.     Let  your  feeding  commence  by  degrees. 

After  your  pups  are  three  months  old,  take  them  through 
another  course  of  vermifuge,  and  again  at  six  months. 

In  case  of  distemper,  the  pup's  next  worst  enemy,  as  soon  as 
you  have  discovered  that  they  have  it,  put  them  in  a  good  dry, 
airy  room  where  there  is  no  possible  chance  for  them  to  get 
damp.  Keep  their  bowels  open  and  feed  plenty  of  good, 
wholesome  food, 

TRAINING. 

At  the  age  of  eight  months  take  your  pups  out  with  the  your 
old  dogs  where  you  know  you  cannot  find  any  game,  circle  them 
through  the  woods  a  wliile  and  return  home.  Repeat  this 
several  times  before  you  attempt  to  have  a  race;  it  gets  them 
used  to  you,  your  horn,  the  older  dogs,  the  woods,  and  teaches 
them  how  to  return  home. 

If  you  desire  your  pups  to  be  wide  rangers,  never  permit  an 
old  dog  that  hangs  around  you,  to  accompany  you  on  these  pre- 
liminary trips,  nor  until  the  pup  forms  his  habit  of  ranging, 
which,  if  properly  bred  they  will  soon  do  when  the  old  dogs  you 
have  along  range  wide. 

After  you  think  you  have  familiarized  them  with  the  old  dogs, 
your  horse  and  horn,  and  where  home  is,  go  to  where  you  have  a 
fox  that  is  somewhat  cowardly,  for  it  will  not  do  to  get  them  in- 
to a  too  hard  race.  If  they  are  bred  right  they  will  try  to  stay 
in  the  front  flight.  It  would  be  best  for  the  pups  if  the  first  five 
or  six  races  only  lasted  for  an  hour.  It  would  give  them  confi- 
dence, and  only  make  them  more  anxious  for  another  race. 
Three  races  of  an  hour  each,  with  a  half  hour  intervening,  is 
better  than  one  race  of  two  hours.  If  possible  never  let  your 
pup  find  out  that  the  other  dogs  can  beat  him  at  any  place  in  the 
race. 

If  you  are  successful  enough  to  jump  a  fox  with  your  pups  be- 
fore they  have  ever  run  a  rabbit  or  anything  of  the  kind,  you 
will  seldom  have  any  trouble  breaking  them,  although  there  are 
lots  of  fine  hunters  who  do  not  object  to  their  pups  running 
rabbits. 

Above  all  things  avoid  getting  your  young,  soft,  eight  or  ten 


10  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

months  old  pnps  into  a  hard  red  fox,  wolf  or  deer  race,  for  if  he 
is  forced  to  quit  once,  the  next  time  will  come  easier  with  him 
and  he  will  not  think  it  so  bad  to  quit.  Try  to  teach  him  that 
he  must  stay  in  every  race  to  the  finish. 

Before  you  can  expect  to  be  able  to  train  dogs  you  must  know 
when  your  dog  is  in  proper  condition,  and  what  should  be  re- 
quired of  him  when  in  that  condition.  Until  you  know  this  you 
cannot  expect  to  properly  train  your  dogs. 


The  following  is  taken  from  an  article  written  by  Mr.  F.  W. 
Samuels,  of  Indianapolis,  Ind.,  and  published  under  the  caption 
of  "Hounds,  Rabbits  and  Foxes,"  in  the  Sportsmen's  Review, 
March,  1905: 

"Several  writers  have  stated  that  they  do  not  allow  their 
young  dogs  to  mn  rabbits,  that  it  ruins  them  for  fox  dogs.  My 
experience  has  been  the  reverse.  A  hound  puppy,  until  he  is  a 
year  old,  should  be  given  his  freedom,  to  grow  and  develop. 
Chasing  rabbits  teaches  him  to  search  and  scout,  and  after 
making  a  start  to  stick  to  the  trail.  If  you  notice  that  a  young 
dog  is  easily  discouraged  on  a  rabbit  track,  does  not  of  his  own 
accord  go  out  and  hunt,  and  after  striking  and  losing  gives  up 
quickly,  knock  him  in  the  head;  he  will  disappoint  you  later  on, 
I  do  not  believe  it  policy  to  encourage  a  young  dog  to  run 
rabbits;  let  him  do  it  for  the  love  of  the  thing.  In  fact,  pay  no 
attention  to  him,  let  him  get  himself  in  condition  for  a  grander 
race,  and  then  when  he  is  turned  in  with  a  pack  of  older  dogs 
after  a  fox,  look  out,  for  he  will  most  likely  lead  the  pack  on 
straightaway  runs,  and  his  experience  with  bunny  on  the  loses, 
will  develop  on  a  larger  scale  with  Reynard. 

After  two  or  three  fox  races  you  will  have  no  trouble  to  break 
him  from  running  rabbits.  A  harsh  word  will  stop  him;  if  it 
don't,  a  good  stiff  club  will. 

A  young  dog  should  run  an  hour,  or  two  hours  at  the  longest, 
at  the  start.  He  should  be  stopped,  if  possible,  with  plenty  of 
endurance  up  his  sleeve.  Many  very  promising,  courageous 
young  dogs  are  ruined  by  being  run  to  death  the  first  two  or 
three  races,  and  if  they  have  the  courage  to  go  will  break  them- 
selves down  in  their  efforts  to  keep  up  with  strong  and  seasoned 
dogs." 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  11 

BREEDING,  REARING  AND  TRAINING. 
By  O.  L.  Hennigan,  Brick,  Ala. 

Different  hunters  have  different  ideas  about  hunting  and 
hounds.  Some  prefer  one  style  of  hound  and  some  another.  I 
make  no  pretensions  of  being  a  "know-all,"  yet,  by  my  friends 
and  hunting  companions,  I  am  called  a  good  hunter  and  a  good 
judge  of  a  hound.  From  friends,  this  is  very  gratifying  to  me ; 
for  the  opinions  of  other  people  I  care  notliing.  I  have  had  a 
mania  for  hunting,  and  especially  fox-hunting,  all  my  life,  and 
have  spent  many  a  hard-earned  dollar  in  pursuit  of  the  sport.  I 
have  hunted  foxes  in  Alabama  and  Arkansas,  in  my  native 
mountains,  and  in  the  swamps  of  the  Red  River.  I  have  ridden 
to  hounds  after  deer,  and  followed  a  bear  pack  in  the  cane- 
brakes  of  the  great  Mississippi  delta— that  garden  spot  of  the 
earth.  I  have  also  run  wolves,  caught  'coons  and  'possums, 
hunted  wild-cats,  shot  birds,  and  pitted  game-cocks.  In  all  of 
these  most  "disreputable  (?)  pursuits"  I  have  attained  a  reason- 
able degree  of  proficiency. 

I  shall  endeavor  to  give  the  beginner  the  result  of  my  experi- 
ence in  order  that  he  may  be  saved  some  time,  money,  and 
disappointments.  To  the  man  who  has  hunted,  as  I  have,  all 
my  life,  I  shall  have  nothing  to  say;  he,  as  well  as  myself,  are 
wedded  to  our  idols. 

There  are  lots  of  good  hounds.  Everybody  has  some  good 
ones.  Through  the  columns  of  the  sporting  press  we  have  often 
seen  very  warm  and  oftentimes  acrimonious  discussions  as  to 
the  relative  merits  of  different  strains.  It  is  not  my  intention  to 
enter  into  such  controversy.  Having  owned  and  hunted  with 
many  strains,  I,  of  course,  have  my  opinion  as  to  which  is  not 
the  best,  but  which  I  like  the  best. 

Being  of  an  inquiring  and  experimental  turn  of  mind,  and  so 
puffed  up  with  egotism  that  I  thought  no  one  knew  as  much 
about  breeding  as  I  did,  I,  with  the  help  of  some  of  my  friends, 
who,  like  myself,  showed  a  lamentable  lack  of  judgment,  manu- 
factured a  private  strain  of  our  own.  They  were  one -fourth 
Walker,  one-fourth  English,  one-fourth  Virginia,  and  one- 
fourth  July  blood.  We  know  better  now,  for  the  hounds  were  a 
great  disappointment  to  us.  In  the  first  place,  none  of  us  had 
money  enough  to  buy  horses  fast  enough  to  keep  up  with  them ; 
in  the  second  place,  they  killed  and  ran  out  all  the  foxes  in  the 


12  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

country.  If  they  were  ever  let  out  of  their  kennel  for  exercise, 
they  would  go  to  a  fox-range  even  if  it  was  several  miles  away. 
I  haven't  got  any  of  them  now.  I  unloaded  the  last  of  them  on 
a  kinsman  down  in  south-western  Arkansas.  I  gave  them  to 
him,  and  then  fooled  him  into  paying  the  freight. 

Now  in  breeding  and  training  a  pack  of  foxliounds  for  red  fox 
hunting  I  would  get  the  style  of  hound  that  suited  me  the  best. 
Some  hunters  prefer  a  dog  of  medium  speed,  that  will  run  a  red 
fox  all  night  and  put  him  in  a  hole  some  time  the  next  day. 
Night  hunting  is  all  right  to  test  the  mettle  and  endurance  of  a 
hound.  It  is  no  time  to  test  a  hound's  speed.  For  those  who 
prefer  that  style  of  hunting  I  have  no  criticisms  to  make.  I  do 
not  see  a  great  deal  of  sport  in  night  hunting.  Of  course  the 
hound,  in  a  night  race,  that  will  hammer  his  game  all  night,  is 
a  hound  of  endurance,  but  I  do  not  think  he  is  better  than  the 
hound  that  can  start  up  his  game  in  the  day-time  and  kill  it  in  a 
fair  open  chase.  I  do  not  think  the  mere  length  of  time  a  hound 
runs  is  any  test  of  liis  endurance.  It  is  the  distance  he  covers  in 
a  given  length  of  time.  While  the  dog  that  runs  in  the  lead 
covers  more  ground  and  does  more  work,  as  a  rule,  the  hound 
that  is  in  the  best  condijtion  will  run  the  longest,  if  you  could 
jump  one  fox  after  another,  so  as  test  his  endurance  to  the  core. 
If  a  pack  of  hounds  be  pitted  in  a  daylight  race  with  another 
pack  having  more  heels  and  speed,  one  of  two  tilings  invariably 
happens.  The  slower  hound  is  left  to  the  rear,  or  if  he  be  game 
enough  to  try  to  contend  for  the  lead,  as  he  should,  liis  heart 
will  be  broken  and  his  boasted  endurance  gone,  while  the  faster 
hound,  although  he  may  not  be  able  to  run  as  long  as  the  slower 
liound,  when  the  game  is  killed  will  be  as  fresh  as  a  daisy. 
Salvator  ran  a  mile  in  1: 35,  and  that  is  the  world's  record.  Dan 
Patch  paced  a  mile  in  1 : 56I/4.  How  many  miles  could  he  go  at 
that  gait?  Yet  he  could  be  driven  slower  and  slower  until  one 
could  drive  him  twenty,  forty,  or  fifty  miles  in  a  day. 

I  want  a  high-headed,  dashy  hound,  one  that  hunts  his  terri- 
tory like  a  good  pointer,  in  a  gallop.  I  do  not  want  him  to  fool 
around  with  a  cold  trail.  Of  all  the  abominations  in  dog-flesh  is 
the  slow  trailer  that  turns  over  every  leaf  with  his  nose,  and 
every  time  he  turns  a  leaf,  lifts  his  voice  toward  the  ceinilean 
skies.  I  do  not  want  a  dog  to  give  much  tongue  in  trailing.  I 
want  him  to  hit  his  track  and  run  on  it,  if  the  scent  will  allow. 
A  pack  of  fast,  dashy  trailers  will  jump  their  game  quicker, 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  13 

press  it  harder,  and  kill  or  hole  it  in  half  the  time  a  pack  of  slow 
trailers  and  close  runners  will  do  it.  A  pack  of  this  description 
will  not  get  scattered  and  thrown  out  on  bad  windy  days,  like  a 
slow  trailing  and  close  running  pack,  for  if  the  slow  trailer  and 
close  runner  gets  behind  he  stays  behind  and  never  gets  in  un- 
less the  pack  should  make  a  circle  near  him,  while  the  hound, 
his  opposite  in  tyi3e,  will  throw  off  his  track,  tuck  his  tail  and 
catch  up  sooner  or  later. 

Very  well  do  I  remember  hunting  one  bright  moonlight  night 
(I  sometimes  hunt  at  night  when  my  business  is  such  that  I 
cannot  hunt  in  the  day-time)  striking  a  fox  up  on  Town  Creek. 
Pauline,  a  very  celebrated  hound,  bred  in  Bourbon  county,  Ky., 
was  up  behind.  Two  hours  later,  up  on  Mallard's  Creek,  twelve 
miles  due  east,  the  bitch  passed  by  me  in  the  road  like  a  gray 
streak.  When  the  hounds  turned  back  she  was  with  them, 
crying,  with  her  thin,  quavering  voice,  as  if  some  one  was 
whipping  her.  A  yell  went  up  from  the  crowd  that  could  have 
been  heard  for  miles. 

A  man  to  breed  and  train  a  good  pack  of  hounds  must  be  born 
a  hunter.  He  should  be  familiar  with  the  habits  of  the  fox, 
and  should  know  in  what  direction  he  would  be  likely  to  run  or 
trail.  When  the  track  is  bad,  or  too  cold,  he  should  know 
where  to  carry  his  pack  with  a  likelihood  of  striking  closer  to 
his  game.  He  should  keep  up  with  his  pack  when  trailing  a  fox, 
and  try  and  get  them  all  in  at  the  start,  often  though  one  or 
more  good  hounds  are  left  at  the  jump.  He  should  yell  to  his 
hounds  but  little,  but  I  am  well  aware  there  are  often  times 
when  one's  pent  up  enthusiasm  must  find  utterance.  As  a  rule 
silence  is  a  very  necessary  qualification  of  a  successful  red  fox 
hunter,  one  who  kill  or  holes  his  game  in  an  open,  honorable 
chase.  The  man  who  sits  on  a  runway  for  hours  to  shoot  a  fox, 
I  do  not  think  much  of.  To  my  mind  he  seems  to  have  a  viti- 
ated taste.  I  do  not  see  any  sport,  profit  or  pleasure  in  a  dead 
fox  killed  with  a  shot-gun.  In  the  South  we  are  as  careful  of 
the  lives  of  our  foxes  as  we  are  of  our  pocket-books.  We  never 
kill  one  if  we  can  save  him.  I  suppose  if  I  had  been  educated  to 
hunt  foxes  with  a  shot-gun  I  would  do  so,  but  I  haven't. 

When  raising  puppies  give  them  plenty  to  eat.  Let  them  grow 
into  large  strong  dogs,  though  there  is  such  a  thing  as  having  a 
foxliound  too  big.  I  do  n-ot  like  to  feed  meat  or  beef  scraps 
altogether.     It  makes  the  puppy  too  gross  and  "beefy."     Down 


14  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

here  we  feed  corn -bread  and  buttermilk,  or  mush  and  butter- 
milk, all  they  will  eat,  three  times  a  day  when  young,  twice 
when  older.  When  running  the  pack  we  feed  once  a  day,  and 
give  the  dog  every  mouthful  he  will  eat.  If  we  expect  to  run  in 
the  morning  we  feed  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  before. 
If  we  hunt  at  night  we  feed  in  the  early  morning.  Give  a  good 
feed  of  horse-flesh  or  beef  scraps  occasionally.  Do  not  confine 
your  puppies  in  a  kennel  unless  absolutely  necessary.  Let  them 
run  about  and  run  rabbits.  Hard  hunting,  when  older,  will 
make  fox  dogs  of  them.  Do  not  use  a  whip  when  training  unless 
absolutely  necessary.  Usually,  after  a  race  or  two,  a  puppy  will 
go  into  a  running  pack*  as  far  as  he  can  hear  them.  Never, 
under  any  circumstances,  quit  and  go  home,  and  leave  your  pack 
running.  Stick  to  them  in  running  and  trailing  to  the  finish,  no 
matter  how  hot  or  cold  it  may  be,  or  how  tired  you  are.  If  you 
always  stick  to  your  pack  they  will  stick  to  their  game.  If  you 
quit  them  they  may  run  out  of  the  country  and  some  get  killed 
or  stolen.  I  have  lost  two  or  three  good  hounds  just  in  this  way. 
Sometimes  it  is  necessary  to  "lift"  a  running  pack  of  hounds. 
I  do  not  advise  this,  as  a  rule,  but  some  good  hunters  do  it 
frequently,  especially  in  deer-hunting.  One  ought  never  yell  to 
a  pack  of  dogs  except  to  get  them  together,  or  "lift"  them  except 
when  the  fox  or  deer  has  been  seen  and  the  hounds  have  made  a 
run-over.  A  scarcity  of  game  and  failure  to  hunt  often  will 
make  poor  hounds  out  of  any  strain,  no  matter  how  well  bred. 
Plenty  of  foxes  and  hard  hunting  will  make  a  good  pack.  There 
are  a  dozen  or  more  good  strains  of  foxhounds,  and  there  are 
worthless  dogs  in  all  strains.  Do  not,  I  beg  of  you,  breed  from 
an  inferior  hound  because  he  may  happen  to  be  well  bred. 
Better  hang  him.  When  you  have  certain  blood  lines  that  you 
know  by  past  experience  produce  good  red  fox  dogs,  stick  to 
that.  Promiscuous  crossing  is  not  satisfactory,  neither  is  too 
close  inbreeding,  which  has  a  tendency  to  throw  nervous,  ex- 
citable hounds,  and  babblers.  I  do  not  want  a  hound  to  open  his 
mouth  unless  he  smell  his  game.  I  would  rather  have  a  dog  that 
was  too  "stingy"  with  his  voice  than  one  that  is  a  babbler.  The 
dog  that  cuts  in  ahead  of  the  pack  and  takes  his  stand  to  catch 
the  fox,  is  a  nuisance.  Get  rid  of  him.  Some  hounds  will  do 
this  in  a  rough,  mountainous  country.  Do  not,  I  implore  you, 
inin  "drag"  races  with  your  hounds  if  you  expect  to  have  a  fox 
pack.     I  do  not  know  of  anything  that  so  quickly  demoralizes 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  15 

and  utterly  ruins  a  pack  of  fox  dogs,  unless  it  might  be  the 
advent  of  two  or  three  confirmed  sheep-killers  in  the  pack. 
Drag  hunting  causes  hounds  to  become  "road-runners."  I  have 
known  a  good  pack  of  dogs,  after  being  run  a  few  drag  races,  in 
a  case  where  a  fox  had  ran  in  a  public  road  for  some  distance,  to 
keep  right  on  down  the  road  for  a  mile,  the  fox  in  the  meanwhile 
liaving  went  about  his  business.  All  things  being  equal,  breed 
from  the  best  broken,  and  the  most  level-headed  and  sensible 
hounds.  I  have  seen  puppies  that  were  born  broken,  and  that 
never  run  anything  but  a  fox  or  deer.  If  you  breed  from 
babblers,  road-runners,  and  dogs  addicted  to  running  stock,  you 
may  expect  their  offspring  to  be  fools.  By  the  term  "road- 
runner"  is  meant  the  hound,  who,  from  a  nervous,  excitable 
nature  and  a  consequent  lack  of  brains,  when  a  fox  has  passed 
down  a  road,  corn -row,  or  cotton -middle,  instead  of  turning  with 
his  game,  just  keeps  going.  I  have  seen  some  so-called  w^ell  bred 
hounds  that  would  run  a  road  for  miles  after  a  fox  had 
turned  out,  if  some  one  with  as  little  intelligence  as  the  hounds 
would  only  gallop  after  them  and  yell  a  few  times.  This 
proneness  to  give  to  give  tongue  when  no  game  is  smelt  is  the 
most  undesirable  trait  a  hound  can  have.  Do  not  breed  from 
hounds  that  will  quit  and  pull  out  when  tlie  screws  are  put  to 
them,  no  matter  how  fast.  I  want  a  hound  dead  game  to  the 
finish,  no  matter  how  cold  or  hot.  I  have  carried  hounds  back 
home  on  my  horse  that  had  gone  to  absolute  exhaustion  on  very 
hot  summer  days. 

In  conclusion  I  would  say,  get  any  good  strain  that  suits  you. 
Breed  from  fast,  game,  dashy,  level-headed  hounds  that  are  good 
hunters  or  rangers,  and  tliat  have  good  noses  and  tongues,  and 
dead  game  stayers  in  a  chase.  Feed  the  puppies  all  they  need 
and  let  them  grow  into  large,  strong  hounds.  Hunt  tliem  hard 
and  often,  at  least  three  times  a  week,  oftener  if  you  can.  Have 
a  good,  true  "strike"  dog,  and  when  he  opens  on  wliat  you  know 
to  be  a  fox  trail,  go  to  him,  carry  your  puppies,  put  them  in  and 
then  stay  close  up  with  them  until  the  chase  is  over.  When  you 
have  your  pack  well  trained  it  is  not  necessary  that  you  keep  so 
close  with  your  pack  wiien  running,  but  as  for  me,  I  never  like 
to  be  out  of  hearing  distance  of  my  dogs  at  any  time  during  tlie 
chase.  The  same  thing  will  apply  to  any  pack  for  any  kind  of 
hunting. 


16  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

RAISING  AND  TRAINING  FOXHOUNDS. 
By  W.  I.  Spears,  Byhalia,  Miss. 

There  is  much  to  be  learned  along  this  line.  I  once  had  a 
favorite  bitch  to  whelp  twelve  fine  lemon  and  white  puppies, 
and  I  was  so  anxious  that  they  should  all  be  raised  that  I  gave 
the  mother  all  the  rich  food  that  she  would  eat,  and  not  a  single 
pup  lived  to  be  three  weeks  old.  I  think  the  rich  food  caused 
milk  fever.  Buttermilk  and  good  bread  is  an  excellent  feed  for 
a  suckling  dam,  and  after  the  puppies  are  weaned  it  is  still  a  fine 
feed  for  them.  They  should  also  have  several  baits  a  week  of 
fresh  beef  scraps. 

Sense  and  ambition  are  two  of  the  most  important  requisites 
for  a  red  fox  hound,  and  if  you  have  bred  tliem  right  they  will 
have  it.  When  my  puppies  are  six  months  old  I  take  them  out 
of  the  kennel  and  learn  them  to  follow  the  horn,  and  later  take 
them  out  after  rabbits  and  learn  them  to  hark  and  pack  after 
rabbits  just  like  I  do  after  foxes.  Don't  let  them  scratch  out  of 
the  kennel  and  run  off  and  hunt  and  run  by  themselves,  for  this 
ruins  a  high  class  puppy  quicker  than  any  other  one  thing. 
Never  go  home  and  leave  a  foxhound  in  the  woods,  for  if  you  do 
he  soon  learns  to  give  you  the  dodge  and  stay  there  and  run  just 
what  he  pleases  and  as  long  as  he  pleases.  Never  allow  them  to 
run  anything  from  puppyhood  except  a  rabbit  and  a  fox,  and  as 
soon  as  they  have  had  a  few  fox-chases  they  will  scorn  a  rabbit. 
Never  let  them  run  a  dog  or  a  house -cat.  Never  turn  them  loose 
in  a  path  or  public  road.  Never  let  them  bark  except  when  they 
are  on  a  trail,  for  a  babbler  is  the  most  worthless  of  all  dogs  ex- 
cept possibly  the  flunker  or  quitter,  and  both  ought  to  be  killed 
at  once.  By  all  means  learn  the  selfish  puppy  to  hark  to  the 
pack.  Study  the  nature  of  your  puppies  and  learn  them  to  love 
you.  Most  of  the  liigh-class  dogs  are  timid  and  will  not  stand 
severe  treatment.  When  a  man  has  a  pack  of  well  trained, 
sensible,  close,  hard  running  dogs,  he  is  well  equipped  for  the 
grandest  sport  on  earth. 

Success,  health  and  prosperity  to  biggest  hearted  people  on 
earth,  the  fox-hunters,  is  my  wish. 


PART  III. 


HISTORY  OF  NOTED  STRAINS. 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  17 

THE  BUCKFIELD  FOXHOUNDS. 

A.  C.  Heffenger,  M.  D.,  M.  F.  H.  Brunswick  Fur  Club. 

The  Buckfield  foxhounds,  the  most  distinctive  family  of  the 
breed  in  New  England,  originated  in  and  around  the  town  of 
Buckfield,  Me.,  from  which  they  derived  their  name.  About 
fifteen  years  ago  I  hunted  with  many  of  these  foxhounds  in 
different  parts  of  Maine,  and  their  fine  work  so  interested  me 
that  I  made  a  special  study  of  their  history,  and  after  many 
personal  trips  and  much  letter  writing  obtained  the  followmg 

facts: 

About  1858  a  peddler  from  Canada  passed  through  Buckfield, 
Maine,  and  had  with  him  a  cheap  looking  foxhound  bitch.  She 
was  blue  and  red  mottled,  with  short  ears,  very  coarse  haired, 
tail  and  hams  well  feathered,  weighed  about  thirty  or  thirty-five 
pounds,  and  looked  as  if  she  were  a  foxhound-and-Irish -setter 
cross.  Mr.  Zipp  Bobbins  of  Buckfield  took  a  fancy  to  the  bitch, 
and  bought  her  for  a  mere  song.  When  taken  out  hunting,  she 
proved  a  veritable  rough  diamond,  for  she  was  a  quick,  sure 
starter,  using  excellent  judgement  in  taking  a  track,  and  drove 
the  fox  fast,  with  very  few  faults  from  daylight  till  dark.  She 
had  a  quick,  choppy  bark,  and  gave  tongue  at  every  jump. 

At  about  the  same  time  a  tramp  stopped  at  the  house  of  the 
Keen  brothers,  noted  fox-liunters  of  Buckfield,  Maine,  having 
with  him  a  black,  stump-tailed  hound,  supposed  to  be  of  English 
breeding.  The  tramp  and  his  hound  left,  but  the  latter  re- 
turned to  the  Keens,  who  kept  him,  thinking  his  owner  would 
return  for  him,  which,  however,  he  never  did.  Soon  after  this 
the  Keens  started,  one  morning,  on  a  hunt,  taking  their  hounds, 
the  stump-tailed  dog  following.  Upon  reaching  the  hunting 
ground,  the  tramp's  hound  went  to  work,  started  the  fox,  and 
carried  him  all  day  in  great  form,  completely  outpointing  the 
other  hounds. 

The  Keens  and  Bobbins  had  a  conference,  and  concluded  to 
breed  the  peddler's  bitch  to  the  tramp's  dog.  The  bitch  Skip 
was  very  fast,  but  the  dog  Tige  was  slow,  so  that,  though  some 
of  the  progeny  were  fast,  most  of  them  were  of  moderate  speed. 
Five  puppies  resulted  from  this  mating— four  dogs  and  a  bitch. 
The  exact  history  of  the  dogs  is  not  known,  but  the  bitch  was 
bought  by  Mr.  T.  H.  Gledhill,  then  living  in  Norway,  Maine, 
and  he  named  her  Bose.     As  this  bitch  became  famous— was 


18  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

known  tliroughout  Maine  as  the  Gledhill  bitch,  and  was  practi- 
cally the  dam  of  the  Buckfield  strain— a  description  of  her.  may 
not  be  amiss.  She  was  a  small,  compact,  red  or  tan-colored 
hound,  quite  shaggy  in  coat,  and  feathered  on  tail  and  hams. 
Her  ears  were  short ;  and  altogether  she  was  an  ordinary  looking 
bitch.  In  work  slie  took  after  her  dam— being  a  good  hunter; 
would  only  take  a  good  track ;  and,  when  the  fox  was  up,  would 
stay  with  it  all  day.  Her  trailing  was  wonderful,  for  she  had 
no  hard  places,  even  on  ice,  crust  or  ledge,  but  drove  her  fox 
with  steady,  persistent  smoothness.  She  had  the  same  sharp, 
choppy  tongue  as  her  dam,  and  always  ran  very  near  the  game. 
Mr.  Gledhill  bred  her  to  a  blue  mottled  hound,  owned  by  Mr. 
Lon.  Buck,  of  Buckfield,  and  from  this  nick  came  the  noted 
Dime  Buck,  generally  known  as  "Old  Dime."  Mr.  Lon.  Buck 
first  owned  tliis  dog,  but  Mr.  Gledhill  heard  of  his  great  work, 
and  went  to  Buckfield,  bought  him  for  $40,  and  took  him  to 
Norway,  Maine,  where  he  remained  till  his  death.  He  was  a 
tough-made,  long,  coarse-haired  hound;  his  markings  being  tan, 
white  and  red  mottled.  He  was  bred  to  a  bitch  called  Daisy, 
from  Casco,  Me.,  but  owned  at  the  time  by  Thomas  Everett  of 
Norway,  and  claimed  to  be  of  Buckfield  blood.  The  result  of 
til  is  breeding  was  Dime  Danforth,  considered  the  star  hound  of 
the  strain.  He  was  owned  by  Mr.  James  Danforth,  of  Norway, 
and  was  admitted  to  be  the  finest  hound  ever  seen  in  that 
country.  He  inherited  his  sire's  size  and  markings,  but  far  ex- 
celled him  in  nose,  speed  and  endurance.  He  would  take  a  furi- 
ous clip  when  the  game  was  afoot,  in  the  morning,  and  hold  it 
all  day.  His  fame  spread  all  over  New  England,  and  bitches 
vrere  sent  from  every  direction  to  be  bred  to  him.  The  next 
famous  liound  was  Red  Dime,  by  Dime  Danforth  ex.  Spot;  Red 
Dime  sired  Red  Sport,  out  of  Daisy;  and  Red  Sport  sired  Mr. 
Gledhill's  present  stud  dcg,  Tomey,  out  of  Fanny.  Mr.  Gledhill 
also  has  an  inbred  Buckfield  bitch,  Peggy,  that  has  thrown  some 
fine  pups  by  Tomey.  And  now  for  the  breeding  of  the  Buckfield 
descendent  that  has  won  not  only  New  Eng-land  fame,  but  whose 
renown  througli  his  great  winnings  in  tlie  fourtli  annual  field 
trials  of  the  Brunswick  Fur  Club  has  reached  ail  parts  of  the 
hunting  world.  This  hound  was  Jim  Blaine,  and  he  has  added 
more  luster  to  the  strain  than  any  of  its  representatives.  Jim's 
sire  was  a  full-blooded  Byron  Iiound  of  great  speed;  while  his 
dam,  Pert,  was  by  Gerry's  Jack,  out  of  Gypsy;  and  Jack  was  by 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  19 

Dime  Danforth,  out  of  Fauuy.  Jim  inherited  all  of  Dime  Dan- 
fortli's  speed  and  endurance,  aiid  got  additional  dash  and  heel 
from  his  sire,  Bugle,  who  was  a  winner  on  the  bench,  as  well  as 
in  the  first  annual  field  trials  of  the  B.  F.  C.  Jim  won  the 
silver  endurance  medal  in  the  B.  F.  C,  field  trials  in  1892.  He 
was  a  small  black  and  tan,  with  white  legs  and  breast,  a  blaze 
on  face,  and  tail  tipped  white.  He  was  closely  and  strongly 
made,  and  had  the  greatest  stride  I  ever  saw  in  a  hound  of  his 
inches.  His  owner  was  Mr.  Richard  Seely  of  Portsmouth,  N. 
H.,  and  he  was  bred  by  Mr.  A.  M.  Gerry  of  South  Paris,  Me. 
His  markings  he  got  from  his  Soutliern  side. 

The  coat  of  the  Buckfields  at  one  time  was  mostly  coarse, 
with  heavy  feather  on  hams  and  tail,  but  out-crosses  have  intro- 
duced smooth  coats,  and  the  majority  are  now^  closer  coated 
than  their  primal  ancestors.  Mr.  C.  M.  Smith  of  Norw^ay,  Me., 
has  the  shaggiest  hound  extant  of  the  breed,  and  the  feather  on 
his  brush  is  said  to  be  ten  inches  long.  The  markings  of  the 
Buckfield  hounds  of  to-day  are  red  or  tan,  red  and  white,  red 
and  wdiite  mottled,  or  red  and  blue  mottled,  and  now  and  then  a 
solid  black  one,  a  reversion  of  old  Tige,  tlie  original  sire. 

Finally,  I  must  speak  of  a  famous  hound  which  was  said  to 
have  come  from  the  Buckfields,  but  whose  breeding  it  has  not 
been  possible  to  trace  clearly  back  to  the  various  Dimes  and 
Bose.  I  refer  to  grand  Ben  Butler,  now  alas!  dead,  wdio  was 
owned  by  Mr.  L.  O.  Dennison  of  the  Brunswick  Fur  Club.  It 
was  my  pleasure  to  have  hunted  with  Ben  for  several  years,  and 
he  certainly  had  many  characteristics  of  the  strain.  His  judge- 
ment in  taking  a  trail  was  marvelous  and  his  nose  was  so  good 
that  he  never  put  it  nearer  than  four  or  five  inches  of  the 
ground,  even  in  the  hardest  place.  The  hound  never  lived  that 
could  drive  a  fox  smoother,  and  when  he  got  his  game  up  he 
kept  it  going  steadily  from  daylight  till  dark.  He  was  a  strong 
hound,  of  good  size,  blue  mottled  and  tan  in  marking,  and  he 
never  was  known  to  be  foot-sore.  He  won  first  in  endurance  in 
the  first  annual  trial  of  the  B.  F.  C,  and  his  nose  and  endurance 
mark  him  as  a  Buckfield,  even  though  his  breeding  cannot  be 
clearly  traced.  He  was  bred  in  Maine,  and  came  from  within 
thirty  miles  of  Buckfield,  and  there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that 
the  blood  of  Tige  and  Skip  flowed  richly  in  his  veins. 

In  this  history  of  the  Buckfield  foxhounds  seven  generations 
are  given,  that  is,  counting  Tige  and  Skip  as  the  first  and  Jim 


20  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

Blaine,  Toniey,  Peggy,  etc.,  as  the  seventh.  Among  these  gener- 
ations have  been  many  grand  hounds  not  previously  mentioned, 
such  as  Smut,  Dick  and  Dime  (two  brothers)  and  Red  Tom. 
The  Maine  fox-hunters,  thougli  obtaining  liigh  class  foxliounds 
from  all  over  the  country  for  trial,  are  still  loyal  to  the 
Buckfields,  and  declare  tliem  to  be  superior  for  their  kind  of 
hunting  to  all  other  strains  so  far  tested. 


THE  GOODMAN  FOXHOUNDS. 
W.  C.  Goodman  in  "Shooting  and  Fishing.** 

The  question  has  often  been  asked  how  these  hounds  came  by 
their  name.  The  honor  of  naming  them  belongs  to  Dr.  W.  E. 
Wyatt,  Cyrena,  Mo.,  and  the  history  of  the  strain  and  the  name 
is  as  follows:  Mr.  Colcord  and  I  gave  some  pups  to  Capt.  R.  L. 
Bowles,  Palmyra,  Mo.,  and  these  hounds  made  quite  a  repu- 
tation for  themselves  as  red  fox  foxliounds.  Dr.  J.  W.  Norris 
hunted  often  with  the  Bowles  hounds,  but  he  and  the  Captain 
had  a  misunderstanding  regarding  the  hounds  and  the  Doctor 
wrote  to  Kentucky  for  some.  I  answered  his  letter,  but  had 
never  met  him,  and  in  in  1886  Dr.  Norris  got  his  first  Kentucky 
or  Goodman  hounds.  I  traded  him  Trinket  I.  for  a  setter  dog ; 
then  I  bought  Ball  for  him,  and  later  he  got  Glide,  Alice, 
Fiddler  H.,  Little  Flirt,  and  other  hounds  and  puppies  from  me. 
In  that  way  Dr.  Norris  came  by  them.  Then  I  let  Mr.  R.  H. 
Pooler,  Serena,  111.,  have  Cull  and  Trinket  II.;  later  he  got 
Colonel,  Bailey,  Kitsey  and  several  more,  in  all  about  a  dozen, 
and  these  hounds  made  as  great  a  reputation  in  Illinois  as  red 
fox  hounds  as  the  others  had  done  in  Missouri. 

Dr.  Wyatt  heard  of  them  and  wrote  to  me  for  some  hounds. 
I  sent  them  to  him,  and,  after  they  had  been  thoroughly  tested, 
he  wrote  requesting  the  liberty  of  using  my  name  in  a  letter  he 
intended  to  write  to  the  American  Field.  I  gave  my  consent 
and  in  the  letter  he  called  them  the  Goodman  hounds.  I  had  no 
idea  that  he  was  going  to  use  my  name  in  that  way,  and  I  was 
not  after  that  kind  of  notoriety. 

Mr.  B.  F.  Robertson  lived  in  Montgomery  county,  and  his 
hounds  were  called  the  Robertson,  the  Irish,  or  the  Maryland 
hounds;  Gen.  Maupin  lived  in  Madison  county,  and  his  hounds 
were  called  the  Madison  County  hounds,  while  ours  were  known 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  21 

as  the  Bourbon  County  or  Blue  Grass  hounds— in  breeding  they  . 
were  the  same  as  the  Maupin  hounds.  Looking  at  the  map  you 
will  find  these  counties  in  the  center  of  the  blue  grass  region.  I 
had  the  creme  de  la  creme  of  the  Maupin  blood,  and  as  good  red 
fox  hounds  as  ever  made  a  track  after  Reynard.  These  I  crossed 
upon  the  best  of  the  Robertson  or  Maryland  hounds.  I  was  the 
first  in  this  county  to  make  that  cross,  and  I  made  it  in  oppo- 
sition to  my  hunting  companions.  To-day  they  stand  convinced 
that  I  was  right.  I  produced  great  red  fox  hounds  through  the 
pure  Maupins,  Old  Trix,  Flirt,  Lizzie  and  Die,  crossed  on  the 
Wild  Irishman  (son  of  Old  May),  Tickler,  Red  Stags,  Ben  C, 
Whitey  and  Fury,  who  were  all  pure  Robertson.  This  cross  is 
the  so-called  Goodman  hound. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  Maryland  or  Irish  blood  is  the  best, 
but,  if  it  is,  we  have  here  hounds  that  are  fourteen-sixteenths 
pure  Irish,  whose  ancestors  were  brought  from  Maryland  by  Mr. 
Robertson.  They  have  but  one  out-cross  (two-sixteenths)  and 
that  is  the  best  blood  in  them,  they  run  back  through  Whitey, 
Fury,  Wag  and  Red  Stags  to  White  Tickler  and  May  uncon- 
taminated.  There  is  no  Birdsong  blood  in  them.  We  have  had 
in  Kentucky  since  the  war  many  of  the  Birdsong  hounds,  that 
were  brought  here  by  our  fox-hunters,  who  were  in  Georgia 
trading  in  horses  and  mules,  but  we  have  had  other  hounds  I 
liked  much  better.  I  guess  those  that  came  to  Kentucky  were 
an  inferior  lot  and  not  Birdsongs  at  all,  for  fox-hunters,  like 
fishermen,  will  bear  watching.  I  received  a  letter  recently  from 
a  gentleman  in  Alabama,  stating  that  he  had  a  Whitey-Fury 
hound,  four  years  old.  I  had  the  unpleasant  duty  of  informing 
him  that  Whitey  and  Fury  had  been  dead  for  fifteen  or  eighteen 
years. 

I  don't  think  that  speed-  alone  is  the  great  requisite  in  a  red 
fox  hound.  Some  of  our  fastest  hounds  are  our  most  indifferent 
red  fox  hounds.  I  want  courage,  speed,  bottom,  endurance, 
constitution,  nose  and  fox  sense,  plenty  of  bone  and  feet  like 
iron — then  you  have  red  fox  hounds  that  are  able  and  willing  to 
run  five  days  in  succession  and  make  a  good  race  every  day.  T 
have  seen  plenty  of  lionnds  that  would  make  one  or  two  good 
races  a  week  and  run  to  the  front  in  them,  but  after  that  they 
would  hunt  their  beds.  They  are  not  the  kind  I  want.  I  do  not 
think  that  any  fox-hunters,  with  the  exception  of  the  Walker 
brothers,  put  their  hounds  to  so  severe  a  test  as  we  do.     We 


22  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

frequently  liunt  our  hounds  three  or  four  weeks  on  a  stretch ; 
unless  badly  used  up  they  must  go  every  day,  and  it  takes  bull- 
dog courage  to  go  at  all  times  and  under  all  conditions.  TJiere 
are  other  gentlemen  in  this  county  who  have  just  as  good 
hounds  as  I  ever  owned,  just  as  well  bred  and  the  same  stock,  I 
do  not  claim  to  have  a  cinch  on  the  strain.  I  have  sold  a  few 
hounds,  and  bought  four  times  as  many  from  my  hunting  com- 
panions for  other  sportsmen  in  different  parts  of  the  United 
States,  without  compensation.  I  am  ever  willing  to  help 
brother  hunters  secure  what  they  want.  You  will  hardly  find  a 
hound  here,  that  is  a  fox  dog,  that  does  not  tmce  back  to  the 
hounds  mentioned  in  this  letter.  Hunters  here  at  home  give  me 
credit  for  honesty  of  purpose  and  the  credit  of  breeding  this 
strain  of  hounds ;  for  the  opinion  of  some  others  I  do  not  care  a 
bauble. 

If  a  hound  is  of  no  account,  I  am  one  of  the  first  to  condemn 
him,  let  him  belong  to  king,  prince  or  pauper.  I  have  no  ax  to 
grind  and  am  not  prejudiced  for  or  against  any  hound  or  strain 
of  hounds.  There  are  good  and  bad  hounds  in  all  strains,  and 
the  best  strain  is  that  which  produces  the  greatest  number  of 
first-class  red  fox  hounds. 

A  Georgia  gentleman  wrote  me  not  long  ago  that  he  was 
tlioroughly  convinced  that  we  in  the  blue  grass  district  of 
Kentucky  could  breed  a  better  hound  from  the  same  stock  than 
they  could  in  Georgia;  just  as  we  could  breed  better  horses, 
cattle  or  mules,  because  our  climate,  our  blue  grass,  and  our 
strong  limestone  soil  and  water,  are  all  conducive  to  bone  and 
muscle.  But  the  same  stock  grows  larger  in  Missouri  than  in 
Kentucky ;  our  hounds  do  not  average  thirty  inches  around  the 
cliest.  I  have  never  seen  a  foxliound  so  large.  I  have  measured 
over  a  hundred  in  different  states  and  have  never  found  one 
twenty-nine  inches.  Our  hounds  are  from  twenty  to  twenty- 
three  inches  high  and  twenty-four  to  twenty-seven  inches  a- 
round  the  chest.  Take  two  inches  off  those  Missouri  hounds 
and  they  will  be  plenty  large  then,  I  tliink  the  Brunswick  Fur 
Club  is  about  convinced  after  last  year's  experience  that  our 
Southern  foxliounds  can  kill  their  Northern  red  foxes.  They 
had  at  that  meet  some  of  the  Goodman  foxliounds,  and  I  hope  to 
be  present  with  them  myself  at  their  next  meet. 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  23 

THE  BYRON  STRAIN. 
Dr.  A.  C.  Heffenger  in  the  "American  Field,"  July  1,  '93. 

Only  a  few  years  ago  the  Byron  was  the  most  famous  strain  in 
America;  but  two  or  three  years  since  the  breeding  pack  was 
sold  out,  scattered  far  and  near,  and  the  strain  is  doomed  to 
rapid  extinction.  Before  their  name  becomes  but  a  memory  I 
would  like  to  tell  your  hunting  readers  what  I  know  and  have 
read  of  them. 

It  seems  that  about  fifty-five  years  ago  some  gentlemen  of 
Petersburg,  Pa.,  organized  a  hunting  club  and  imported  some 
fine  English  foxhounds.  They  inter-bred  a  couple  of  these 
hounds,  and  among  the  issue  was  an  exceptionally  fine  young 
bitch,  named  Clio.  She  was  taken  by  a  member  of  the  hunt, 
Mr.  John  Dugger,  from  Petersburg  to  Lawrenceville ,  Va.,  for 
the  purpose  of  breeding  her  to  a  famous  foxliound  (Rattler) 
owned  by  Mr.  H.  L.  Percivall,  whose  hounds  were  noted  for 
their  choice  breeding.  Forester,  the  sire  of  Rattler,  was  raised 
and  run  by  Mr.  Thomas  Spencer,  of  Greenville  County,  Va. 
Rattler's  dam  was  either  an  imported  red  and  white  speckled 
bitch,  or  a  well  bred  blue  speckled  bitch;  the  imported  bitch 
was  presented  by  Capt.  Manlove  to  Capt.  Dann,  of  Lawrence- 
ville, Va.  It  was  about  1830  that  Mr.  Percivall  had  a  pack, 
with  Rattler  at  the  head.  In  a  series  of  competitive  chases  Mr. 
Percivall' s  pack  vanquished  the  Tucker  pack,  and  consequently 
tlie  stud  services  of  Rattler  were  soon  in  great  demand ;  and  so 
Clio  was  taken  to  the  Percivall  kennels  to  be  bred  to  him: 

From  this  mating  resulted  four  puppies — Byron,  Rattler  II, 
Music  and  Dido.  These  puppies  were  placed  in  the  pack  of  Mr. 
George  Dugger,  who  ran  them  one  season,  when  a  removal  to 
Alabama  caused  him  to  turn  them  over  to  Col.  P.  B.  Starke, 
with  the  understanding  that  Byron  should  go  to  Col.  E.  P. 
Tucker,  as  promised.  Col.  Starke  kept  Rattler  II,  and  pro- 
nounced him  one  of  tlie  finest  hounds  he  ever  saw.  Eventually 
Mr.  Dugger  took  Dido  west,  and  her  blood  is  mingled  with  that 
of  the  best  strains  west  of  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains.  Music  was 
given  to  Col.  Hampton  of  South  Carolina,  father  of  the  present 
Wade  Hampton.  After  her  arrival  she  was  turned  loose;  she 
started  back  to  Virginia,  where  she  turned  up  in  due  season  at 
her  old  home,  after  passing  through  three  states — probably  the 
greatest  piece  of  homing  on  record  on  the  part  of  a  hound. 


24  THE   AMERICAN   FOXHOUND 

Byron  passed  into  the  kennels  of  Col.  Tucker,  and  the  Tuckers 
and  Starkes  bred  the  strain  for  many  years.  Byron  became 
famous  all  over  the  South,  was  bred  to  bitches  from  many 
states,  and  his  fame  caused  the  strain  to  take  his  name.  He  was 
a  pale  black  and  tan,  with  a  small  white  streak  down  his  face ; 
his  coat  was  coarse,  tail  bushed  and  ear  short.  In  fact  he  was 
much  like  some  of  the  July  or  Irish  hounds  of  the  present  day ; 
and  as  Virginia  contained  a  large  number  of  Irish  hounds  at 
that  time,  taken  there  from  Gov.  Ogle's  Maryland  pack,  it  is 
probable  that  Forester,  Byron's  grandsire,  was  a  pure  Irish 
hound. 

Byron  had  all  the  characteristics  of  a  high-class  foxhound,  for 
his  speed,  powers  of  endurance  and  perseverance  were  unsur- 
passed by  any  one  hound ;  and  he  became  still  more  noted  as  a 
strike  dog  as  he  grew  older.  Col.  John  Tucker  used  to  say  that 
if  a  dozen  packs  had  been  brought  together,  Byron  would  get 
the  strike  from  them  all. 

Rattler  II  took  after  his  grandam  on  his  sire's  side,  for  he  was 
indigo  blue,  with  fine  coat  and  smooth  tail.  Byron,  Rattler  II 
and  their  sister,  Music,  were  the  progenitors  of  the  Byron 
strain.  The  peculiarities  of  the  strain  were — taking  to  the  fox 
at  an  early  age,  dash,  energy,  fox  sense,  long  distance  striking, 
endurance,  and  being  easily  corrected  for  bad  liabits. 

After  Col.  Starke's  death  the  Tuckers  gathered  all  the  best 
Byron  hounds  in  their  kennels,  and  by  careful  breeding  kept  up 
the  high  standard  of  the  strain.  These  hounds,  though  very 
fast  at  first,  liad  tlieir  speed  increased  by  the  judicious  crossings 
of  the  Tuckers.  When  Thomas  Goode  Tucker  moved  from  Vir- 
ginia to  Gaston,  N.  C,  he  took  these  liounds  witJi  liim  and  bred 
them  there  until  his  death,  when  they  were  bought  by  Dr. 
Capehart,  of  Avoca,  N.  C.  They  were  run  in  Avoca  for  a  few 
years,  and  then  advertised  by  their  new  owner  and  sold  to  the 
four  comers  of  the  country.  The  purity  of  their  blood  will  soon 
be  a  thing  of  the  past;  and  all  that  will  be  left  will  be  a 
sprinkling  here  and  there,  as  their  new  owners  cross  them  on  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  hounds  in  their  respective  localities. 

I  have  seen  several  of  the  pure  breed,  and  owned  one.  They 
were  great  hunters,  made  marvelously  long  body-scent  strikes, 
and  ran  a  fox  like  a  wliirlwind;  but  they  were  not  tough,  their 
feet  not  being  close  and  round  enough  to  stand  New  England  ice 
and  crust. 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  25 

I  crossed  the  one  I  owned  on  an  English  and  several  BncMeld 
bitches,  and  the  result  in  every  instance  was  most  satisfactoi-y, 
yielding  progeny  with  all  the  good  points  of  the  sire  and  ad- 
ditional toughness,  with  enduring  capacity  or  a  high  rute  of 
speed  The  noted  Byron-Buckfield  field  trial  winner  ,Tim 
Blaine,  is  a  shining  example  of  this  cross,  he  being  by  the  Byron 
hound  Bugle  out  of  the  Buckfleld  bitch  Pert. 

A  Hunting  Remembrance  of  "Bugle,"  by  Dr.  Heffenger. 

The  early  development  of  the  Byron  hound  was  brilliantly 
shown  to  me  by  Bugle  when  only  seven  months  old.    I,  hunt- 
ing with  an  old  New  England  foxhound,   on  a  cold  day  m 
January,  took  the  pup  along  to  give  him  his  first  lesson.    The 
old  hound  was  working  up  a  cold  trail  some  distance  oA-T'"^" 
the  pup,  while  hunting  a  tliick  cover  in  my  sight,  ™ddenly 
threw  up  his  head,  snuffed  a  couple  of  times,  and  rushed  mto 
the  cover.    Immediately  he  began  tin-owing  his  tongue  ma  most 
energetic  manner,  and  went  off  at  a  tearing  gait  straight  away 
from  me.     There  was  just  enough  snow  for  good  hunting    and 
wlien  I  reached  the  point  where  the  pup  started,  I  found  a  fresh 
fox  track  in  the  snow,  with  a  place  hollowed  under  a  pme  tree 
where  brother  reynard  had  been  ruthlessly  aroused  f-^om  his 
morning's  nap  by  the  infant  Bugle.     The  pup  ran  fast,  and  was 
soon  out  of  hearing;  and  it  was  not  till  after  an  l-nr      hard 
tramp  that  I  came  upon  him  in  a  swamp,  still  drivmg  the  fox 
furiouslv.    The  old  hound  at  this  time  joined  m  the  chase,  but 
was  always  a  long  distance  behind  the  youngster.    At  one  time  1 
Taw  Hie  fox  in  a  leld,  with  the  pup  nipping  at  his  hmd  quarters, 
but  as  soon  as  cover  was  reached  he  slipped  away  from  him. 
The  chase  was  in  hearing  after  this  most  of  the  time  till  8pm 
when  I  broke  through  the  ice  in  crossing  a  large  brook,  getting 
my  rubber  boots  full  of  ice-water,  and  consequently  had  to  go 
home.   The  old  hound  turned  up  that  night,  but  *«  P»P  ^id  not^ 
a^d  was  fomid  the  next  day  at  a  farm-house  eight  miles  from 
home,  where  he  had  tied  up  at  dusk  the  night  before  JHus  wa 
certainly  a  phenomenal  performance  for  a  seven  '^"'jths  PJip,  for 
he  made  a  long  distance  body-scent  strike,  and  P^f  ^^'^Jl^/^";^ 
his  game  the  entire  day,  as  the  old  hound  was  f  ™y«  ^  l°°f 
distfnee  behind  after  he  joined  in  the  '-nt.    Bugle  was  bred^y 
Rhodes  Bros.,  of  Pioneer,  Pa.,  and  his  sire.  Drive,  had  a  record 


m  THE  AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

of  having  run  down,  caught  and  killed  two  red  foxes  in  one  day. 
He  was  killed  by  an  express  train  the  following  year,  while 
killing  a  red  fox  on  the  railway  track,  and  one  of  the  fox's  ears 
was  sent  to  me  as  a  memento.  Bugle  showed  the  same  wonder- 
ful speed  and  killing  powers  of  his  sire,  and  was  the  first  fox- 
hound I  ever  owned  in  New  England  that  could  run  down  and 
kill  a  fox  on  my  hunting  ground. 


THE  MARYLAND  HOUND. 
By  John  C.  Bentley,  Sandy  Spring,  Md. 

The  Maryland  hound,  like  most  satisfactory  things,  has  been 
the  result  of  evolution.  The  hound  of  to-day,  in  this  state,  is 
the  only  hound  which  can  successfully  hunt  the  Maryland  fox 
on  his  chosen  ground.  The  counties  of  Harford,  Baltimore, 
Howard,  Montgomery,  and  Carroll  are  pre-eminently  the  natural 
home  of  the  red  fox.  These  counties  have  a  net-work  of  rivers 
cutting  their  way  to  the  sea,  through  rocky  bluffs,  whose  banks 
are  densely  covered  with  ivy,  the  outer  timber,  above  the  bluffs, 
being  often  thick  pines,  and  a  majority  of  the  river  country  is 
still  heavy  woodland. 

These  rocky  bluffs  abound  in  deep  dens,  in  which  his  fox-ship 
is  safe  from  hounds  and  hunter.  The  ivy  banks,  as  they  are 
called,  require  a  tough,  wiry  dog  to  push  through  them,  or  he 
cannot  make  the  fox  come  out,  and  the  long  reaches  from  one 
river  to  the  next,  when  the  fox  breaks  cover,  will  tax  any  but 
dogs  built  to  travel  at  great  speed,  for  given  good  scenting,  there 
is  nothing  to  prevent  the  foxhound  from  running  at  his  best  gait 
across  the  high,  comparatively  open  country. 

It  is  not  out  of  place  in  a  history  of  the  Maryland  hound  to 
chronicle  the  fact  that  to  Maryland  is  due  the  thanks  of  fox- 
hunters  for  the  red  fox.  In  an  old  print  of  1738  is  an  interesting 
account  of  this  fact.  One  August  evening,  in  what  is  now 
Talbot  county,  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland,  eight  prosper- 
ous tobacco  planters  were  discussing  the  relative  merits  of  the 
red  and  gray  fox.  Four  of  these  planters  had  hunted  the  wily 
red  fox  in  Old  England,  and  rather  cast  imputations  upon  the 
gray  fox  hunters.  The  discussion  waxed  so  warm,  that  to  prove 
their  contention,  one  of  these  planters  (history  unfortunately 
.does  not  give  his  name)  offered  the  use  of  his  tobacco  boat,  the 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  37 

"Monocacy,"  the  captain  being  instructed  to  bring  over  eight 
pairs  of  red  foxes  upon  his  next  voyage,  which  he  was  successful 
in  accomplisliing.  These  foxes  were  turned  out  in  several  parts 
of  the  county  and  soon  began  to  multiply. 

The  red  fox  was  first  seen  on  this  side  of  Chesapeake  Bay  after 
the  tremendous  hard  winter  of  1780,  when  the  bay  was  frozen 
over  from  November  until  April.  It  took  them  twenty  years  to 
work  their  way  up  into  the  above  mentioned  counties.  The 
advent  of  the  red  fox  compelled  fox-hunters  to  change  their 
ideas  of  what  constituted  a  good  hound.  The  gray  fox  dog,  who 
was  slow  and  sure  on  his  rabbit-like  quarry,  would  not  in  any 
way  do  to  make  sport  after  the  swift  red  fox  who  invariably  left 
his  pursuers  so  far  behind,  the  race  gradually  became  a  trail, 
and  at  last,  with  exceptions,  a  dead  loss. 

About  1812,  Mr.  Bolton  Jackson,  a  famous  fox-hunter  ■  of 
Maryland,  sent  to  Ireland^and  imported  a  pair  of  hounds.  After 
a  few  years  tliey  fell  into  the  hands  of  Col.  Sterrett  Ridgely,  a 
fine  old  Maryland  gentleman,  whose  far-reaching  hospitality  and 
great  horseman -ship  are  still  characteristics  of  his  descendants 
in  this  state. 

These  hounds,  "Mountain"  and  "Muse,"  were  given  to  Gov. 
Ogle  about  1823,  who  was  so  impressed  with  their  excellence  he 
bred  them  pure,  and  from  his  pack  came  the  great  hound 
"Sophy."  She  was  such  a  noted  hound  it  is  said  her  portrait 
was  published  in  the  Turf  Register  of  that  day.  Old  Mountain 
was  presented  to  Mr.  Carroll  of  Carrollton.  So  superior  were 
these  hounds  for  chasing  the  red  fox  that  every  fox-hunter  in 
this  part  of  Maryland  promptly  bred  to  the  Ogle  pack,  and  other 
Irish  hounds  were  imported,  but  none  equalled  that  particular 
importation. 

These  Irish  dogs,  (whose  ancestors  had  hunted  the  red  fox  in 
very  much  such  a  country  as  Maryland,  and  in  very  much  the 
same  fashion  of  hunting,  by  their  masters  in  Ireland,  as  was 
practiced  by  the  old  Maryland  fox-hunters)  could  get  upon  even 
terms  with  the  heretofore  impossible  red  fox,  at  once,  not  so 
much  by  their  speed,  as  their  fox  sense,  especially  exemplified  in 
their  tremendous  casting  ahead,  at  losses  frequently,  gaining 
more  on  a  loss  than  had  they  continued  on  the  line.  They  had 
shrill,  choppy  notes,  short  ears,  as  compared  with  the  old  gray 
fox  hound,  large,  prominent  dark  eyes,  were  dappled  in  color,  or 
flecked  with  bluish,  gray  colored  spots.    They  had  rough,  coarse 


38  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

heavy  coats,  which  helped  them  greatly  in  the  dense  cover  they 
often  had  to  go  through  in  the  races. 

Among  a  number  of  hunters  who  had  raised  descendants  of 
old  Mountain  can  be  noted  such  families  as  the  Brookes  and 
Griffiths  of  Montgomery  county,  the  Hardeys  and  Linthicums  of 
Howard  county,  the  Crawfords  of  Carroll  county,  and  Nimrod 
Gosnell;  in  later  days  Redmond  C.  Stewart,  M.  F.  H.  of  Green 
Spring  Valley  Hunt  Club,  Dorsey  Williams  of  Patapsco  Hunt 
Club,  the  Sandy  Spring  Hunt  Club  of  Montgomery  county,  and 
William  Griff ee  of  Carroll  county.  Frank  Hobbs,  a  grandson  of 
the  great  Nimrod  Gosnell,  has  a  small  pack  of  pure  Maryland 
hounds  in  Howard  county. 

Probably  the  oldest  native  strain  of  Maryland  hounds  was 
owned  by  the  Brookes  and  Griffiths  of  Montgomery  county. 
The  Brookes  had  bred  and  raised  a  pack  of  foxliounds  from  an 
importation  by  their  ancestor.  Sir  Robert  Brooke,  who  was  a 
younger  son  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick.  He  came  to  this  country 
with  Lord  Baltimore  and  settled  at  the  mouth  of  the  Patuxent 
River,  and  brought  his  pack  of  English  hounds  with  him. 

Hounds  have  been  kept  in  the  Brooke  family  nearly  up  to  the 
present  time.  Roger  Brookes'  hounds  in  1827  had  a  national 
reputation,  as  can  be  proved  by  the  following,  taken  from  the 
"Maryland  Farmer"  of  that  year. 

"A  most  extraordinary  run  was  made  by  a  red  fox  last  week  in 
Montgomery  county  before  a  pack  of  high  repute  from  Virginia 
and  Maryland.  He  is  estimated  to  have  run  eighty  miles,  and 
was  not  killed  until  late  in  the  afternoon.  This  was  trying  to 
the  mettle  of  the  dogs,  and  it  is  reported  that  the  two  leading 
dogs  throughout  the  chase  belonged  to  Friend  Roger  Brooke. 
As  they  ran  with  ambition  and  performed  with  success,  in  the 
service  for  wliicli  Providence  obviously  designed  them,  they  de- 
serve to  have  their  names  recorded  and  to  be  more  honored  than 
the  most  successful  butcher  of  the  human  species  in  unprinci- 
pled wars.    John  S.  Skinner." 

The  Brooke  pack  produced  some  magnificent  hounds,  probably 
the  most  noted  was  a  hound  known  as  "Brookes'  Barney."  This 
dog  was  the  result  of  a  cross  between  Roger  Brookes'  "Sport"  (a 
hound  with  the  conformation  of  a  race-horse)  and  Thomas 
Griffith,  Jr's  "Belle."  He  was  heavily  coated  with  steel  gray 
hair,  immense  in  size,  twenty-six  inches  at  shoulder,  powerful 
bone  and  back,  and  a  carriage  of  head  and  tail  never  excelled. 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  29 

He  had  the  grandest,  most  earnest  note.  His  qualities  as  a  first- 
class  foxhound  has  never  been  equalled  in  this  state.  His  en- 
durance was  phenomenal ;  he  would  return  from  an  all-day  hunt 
with  his  tail  like  a  flag-staff  over  his  back,  and  in  one  day  he 
helped  to  kill  three  red  foxes,  two  of  which  he  ran  nearly  to  a 
kill  before  the  pack  could  get  up  to  him.  He  was  used  as  a  stock 
dog  by  masters  of  over  ten  packs,  and  there  is  not  a  pack  of  any 
note  in  Maryland  whose  pedigrees  does  not  run  back  to  old 
Barney.  His  cross  with  the  Linthicum  blood  produced  a  bitcli, 
"Lade,"  whose  son  "Nip,"  by  Dr.  Hardey's  "Lifter,"  was  sent 
to  Georgia  and  crossed  with  the  July  stock,  produced  the  finest 
dogs  in  that  state.  Mr.  Gosnell  bred  a  litter  sister  of  "July"  to 
Barney  and  produced  a  litter,  all  of  which  became  famous 
foxhounds.  This  litter  furnished  stock  dogs  for  a  great  many 
hunt  clubs  and  individual  hunters.  So  wonderfully  prepotent 
was  Barney  that  to  this  day  dogs,  who  are  the  ninth  or  tenth 
(male  line)  from  him,  have  his  color  (steel  gray),  note  and  size. 

This  history  of  the  Maryland  foxliound  would  be  incomplete 
without  some  mention  of  the  great  work  done  by  Dr.  William 
Hardey  and  his  brother,  John  Hardey.  These  gentlemen,  who 
reside  a  few  miles  from  the  Carroll  manor  and  the  Gosnell  plan- 
tation, have  from  their  earliest  boyhood  kept  the  best  hounds. 
Mr.  John  Hardey's  dogs  are  perhaps  the  most  carefully  bred, 
and  more  resemble  the  Gosnell  dogs  than  any  Maryland  hounds. 
Mr.  Gosnell  was  a  most  painstaking  breeder  of  foxhounds;  he 
aspired  to  possess  the  best,  and  was  a  fox-hunter  who  could  see 
the  faults  of  his  own  dogs.  Mr.  Gosnell  bred  and  presented  to 
Mr.  Miles  Harris  of  Georgia  a  pair  of  pups,  one  of  wliich,  the 
dog,  July,  was  perhaps  the  most  noted  American  foxhound  we 
have  any  account  of.  July  was  a  medium  sized  dog,  black  back, 
grayish  red  sides,  ashy  tan  legs,  a  bushy  tail,  which  he  carried 
over  his  back,  had  a  shrill,  choppy  note,  and  hunting  qualities 
of  the  Gosnell  dogs,  who  liunted  in  a  gallop,  covering  the  ground 
in  an  incredibly  short  time.  July's  great  name  was  acquired 
solely  because  he  could  handle  the  red  fox  as  no  other  dog  had 
done  in  Georgia  up  to  that  time. 

The  Maryland  hound  is  now  a  much  larger  dog  than  the  medi- 
um sized  hound  of  Nimrod  Gosnell's  time.  The  prevailing 
colors  at  this  time  in  this  state  are  dark  red  with  white  points, 
black  and  tan,  or  gray,  with  ash-colored  tan  legs;  blaze  faces  are 
common. 


30  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

The  gradually  clearing  country  lias  made  the  larger  dog  a 
necessity,  as  to  cross  the  wide  open  country,  requires  a  dog  large 
enough  to  have  a  galloping  stride,  which  the  short  coupled  small 
dog  cannot  have.  He  must  also  have  nose  and  carrying  sense,  as 
the  distance  covered  by  an  old  dog  fox,  ten  or  fifteen  miles 
straight  away,  will  leave  a  hound,  lacking  either,  far  behind. 

The  Maryland  foxliound  of  to-day  fully  upholds  his  ancient 
and  honorable  reputation. 


THE  SUGAR  LOAF  FOXHOUND. 
By  H.  E.  C.  Bryant,  Charlotte,  N.  C. 

Mr.  Joe  Plummer,  who  developed  the  Sugar  Loaf  foxhounds, 
of  Western  Maryland,  was  one  of  the  most  eccentric  Irishmen 
that  ever  lived,  but  a  well-to-do  farmer,  a  capable  grist  mill  man 
and  a  successful  hunter.  His  dogs  were  bred  and  trained  to  his 
own  peculiar  notions;  he  would  not  give  or  sell  to  any  one, 
friend  or  stranger,  an  open  bitch,  or  a  serviceable  dog,  but  kept 
the  stock  within  his  own  kennels  and  for  his  private  use.  The 
Sugar  Loaf  dog  is  not  included  in  what  is  termed  "The  Mary- 
land Hound,"  although  Mr.  Plummer  was  a  contemporary  of 
Messrs.  Nimrod  Gosnell,  Napoleon  Welch,  John  T.  Hardey  and 
Washington  Linthicum,  who  bred  that  noted  strain.  Mr. 
Plummer  belonged  to  the  same  school  of  hunters  but  was  a  little 
selfish,  and  indifferent  about  crossing  or  running  his  dogs  with 
those  of  his  neighbors.  Most  of  his  hunting  was  done  on  the 
Sugar  Loaf  mountains,  along  Sugar  Loaf  creek,  near  his  home, 
with  his  own  pack. 

Some  time  ago  I  visited  the  kennels  of  Messrs.  George  J. 
Garrett  and  Henry  M.  Griff ee,  near  Baltimore,  and  saw  a  Sugar 
Loaf -July  cross  that  pleased  me.  I  was  interested  in  the  half- 
and-half  Sugar  Loaf  and  July  for  I  had  found  the  latter  breed  to 
be  very  fine  but  rather  delicate.  The  July  has  the  keen  nose, 
the  speed  and  the  stamina,  but  seems  to  lack  tough,  healthy 
fibre.  Mr.  Garrett,  who  is  a  good  breeder,  a  good  liunter  and  a 
close  observer,  claims  that  the  Sugar  Loaf  gives  to  the  July  just 
what  is  needed  to  make  the  ideal  foxliound. 

I  have  never  seen  a  more  attractive  lot  of  hounds  than  the 
ones  I  saw  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Griffee  and  at  the  country  place 
of  Mr.  Garrett;  they  were  handsome,  muscular,  well-conditioned 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  31 

and  clean.  Messrs.  Griffee  and  Garrett  have  the  pure-bred  July 
and  the  Sugar  Loaf  cross. 

The  history  of  the  Sugar  Loaf  hound  is  very  simple  but  in- 
tensely interesting.  Mr.  Plummer  bred,  hunted  and  improved 
him  for  many  years,  and  gloried  in  his  striking  peculiarities. 
Unlike  other  hounds  the  Sugar  Loaf  dog  was  brindle  in  color, 
and  vicious  in  disposition.  The  average  fox-hunter  would  not 
accept  a  brindle  puppy  as  a  gracious  gift  for  fear  that  he  might 
prove  to  be  a  mongrel.  But  Mr.  Plummer  liked  the  brindle 
markings.  His  dogs  frequently  came  with  glass  eyes.  But  these 
queer  characteristics  pleased  the  Irishman;  he  had  something 
that  nobody  else  had.  But,  withal,  Mr.  Plummer  knew  the 
marks  of  a  good  hound,  and  could  always  get  the  best  work  out 
of  the  pack  or  the  individual.  His  dogs  drove  hard,  and  long, 
and  never  quit  until  the  fox  was  killed  or  denned. 

All  of  the  Maryland  hunters  of  Mr.  Plummer's  day,  except 
Messrs.  Hardey  and  Linthicum,  are  dead.  Mr.  Linthicum  has 
retired  but  Mr.  Hardey  is  still  breeding  and  hunting  the  Howard 
county  hound.  He  bred  Lade,  the  dam  of  the  famous  July, 
whose  record  is  known  throughout  the  foxhound  world,  and  let 
a  friend  have  her,  and  who,  in  turn,  gave  her  to  Nimrod 
Gosnell.  Messrs.  Hardey,  Gosnell  and  Linthicum  bred  and  run 
together,  and  formed  a  trio  that  sent  to  Georgia,  in  the  latter 
60's  and  the  early  70's,  fifty  or  more  fine  hounds.  George  L.  F. 
Birdsong,  the  South 's  most  noted  fox-hunter,  crossed  his  Henry 
hounds  on  those  of  these  gentlemen. 

Mr.  Nimrod  Gosnell  took  annual  hunts  with  Mr.  Joe 
Plummer,   on  the  Sugar  Loaf  mountain,  in  Frederick  county. 

Mr.  Plummer  hunted  whether  the  weather  conditions  were 
favorable  or  not,  his  dogs  being  trained  to  do  the  best  they  could 
under  the  circumstances.  On  one  occasion,  when  Mr,  Gosnell 
was  on  a  camp  hunt  with  Mr.  Plummer,  the  meal  supply  gave 
out  and  the  hunters  had  no  dog  feed.  Mr.  Plummer  sent  his 
hired  man  to  the  nearest  mill  for  meal ;  no  wagon  being  handy, 
a  sled  was  used.  The  meal  was  out  tliere  and  the  servant  re- 
turned without  any,  but  Mr.  Plummer  started  him  to  another 
mill  with  orders  to  keep  going  till  he  got  plenty  to  last  till  the 
week's  hunt  was  over,  the  ground  being  covered  with  snow  did 
not  worry  him.  That  is  the  sort  of  a  man  Mr.  Joe  Plummer 
was,  and  his  dogs  seemed  to  be  made  of  the  same  kind  of 
material,  for  they,  too,  were  determined  and  tough,  and  did  not 


32  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

know  what  it  was  to  quit.  For  the  first  two  or  three  days,  on 
the  camp  hunts  with  Mr.  Plummer,  Mr.  Gosnell  claimed  that 
his  dogs  had  the  best  of  the  going,  but  after  that,  the  honors 
went  to  the  brindle  liounds,  and  the  longer  they  hunted  the 
better  they  were.  Mr.  Gosnell  called  the  Plummer  dogs  the 
"whalebone  hounds".  He  borrowed  a  pair  of  them  once  and 
hunted  with  his  friend,  Mr.  Hardey.  For  three  days  they  had 
splendid  running,  and  all  of  the  dogs  were  of  a  class,  but  on  the 
fourth  day,  when  the  Howard  county  hounds  seemed  tired  and 
ready  to  quit,  the  brindle  fellows  were  just  getting  in  good 
shape;  doing  better  work  than  ever,  and  would  not  listen  to  the 
blowing  of  the  horn  when  the  hunters  started  home,  and  Mr 
Gosnell  frequently  had  to  wait  until  night  to  get  them  out  of 
the  woods.  Mr.  Hardey  claims  that  he  never  saw  such  dogs; 
they  could  take  a  trail  that  his  dogs  could  not  smell  and  carry 
it.  But  Mr.  Plummer  guarded  his  stock  closely,  and  would  not 
let  anybody  get  it.  By  strategy,  Mr.  Napoleon  Welch  secured 
the  Sugar  Loaf  stock,  and  it  was  he  who  gave  it  out.  There  is  a 
little  romance  connected  with  the  story.  Old  man  Plummer  had 
two  attractive  daughters,  one  of  whom  was  the  avowed  sweet- 
heart of  a  friend  of  Mr.  Welch ;  that  he  might  have  his  girl  all 
to  himself  the  young  gallant  took  Mr.  Welch  along  to  entertain 
the  sister.  The  kindness  was  appreciated  by  the  young  couple, 
and  when  they  had  become  husband  and  wife  Mr.  Welch  ap- 
pealed to  tlie  bride  to  fetch  to  him  at  Baltimore  a  pair  of  her 
father's  best  young  hounds,  and  she  did.  Therefore,  Mr.  Welcli 
not  only  enjoyed  the  company  of  the  accomplished  sister  for  a 
time  but  was  rewarded  in  the  end  with  something  that  no  one 
else  had  been  able  to  get.  He  first  gave  breeding  privileges  on 
the  Sugar  Loaf  dog. 

Tlie  Sugar  Loaf  hound  had  faults,  lie  was  brindle,  frequently 
came  with  a  glass  eye  and  was  ill-tempered ;  these  were  bred  out 
while  the  good  qualities,  the  keen  nose,  the  strong  constitution, 
the  bull -dog  tenacity,  and  the  everlasting  bottom  were  retained. 
The  Sugar  Loaf  blood  drifted  into  the  hands  of  two  Carroll 
county  men,  namely  Messrs.  Henry  M.  Griifee  and  Charley 
Crawford,  a  nephew  of  Nimrod  Gosnell.  Mr.  Garrett,  assisted 
by  Mr.  Welch,  located  Mr.  Crawford  and  drove  twenty-six  miles 
to  his  home,  through  a  snow  storm,  to  see  his  dogs.  Mr. 
Crawford  insisted  that  the  best  way  to  test  hounds  was  to  watch 
them  work  in  the  field,  and  regardless  of  the  unsatisfactory 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  33 

weather  conditions  a  hunt  was  arranged  for  the  following  morn- 
ing after  Mr.  Garrett's  arrival.  The  hunters  retired,  that  night, 
feeling  that  the  elements  were  against  them,  and  would  be  when 
they  arose,  and  their  fears  were  realized,  for  the  next  morning 
the  ground  was  frozen  and  a  stiff  wind  blew  hard  from  the  east. 
The  best  of  dogs  could  make  but  a  poor  showing  under  such 
circumstances. 

But  within  an  hour  after  Mr.  Crawford  and  friends  left  the 
house  a  large  red  fox  was  up  and  going.  He  slipped  out  of  his 
bed  twenty-two  minutes  before  the  dogs  discovered  that  he  was 
up,  and  started  for  a  big  circle  in  that  immediate  neighborhood, 
trying  as  it  were  to  see  what  sort  of  dogs  had  routed  him  on 
such  a  day.  But  it  was  not  many  minutes  before  he  found  that 
Plummer's  old  brindle  stock  followed  in  his  wake,  and  he 
seemed  to  realize  that  he  had  hard  work  ahead  of  him.  The 
brindle  dogs  meant  business,  and  it  took  fearful  weather  to  stop 
them.  Red  reynard  shook  the  dirt  of  that  community  from  his 
feet  and  turned  his  nose  to  the  west,  with  the  rushing  wind,  and 
toward  the  Great  Fields.  The  dogs  followed  in  fine  order,  pack- 
ing and  driving  as  they  went,  and  the  hunters  were  left  far 
behind,  and  lost.  Hour  after  hour  passed  and  no  welcome  sound 
was  heard  until  about  four  o'clock,  in  the  afternoon,  when  some 
traveler  told  Mr.  Crawford  that  the  hounds  were  running  hard, 
on  Morgan's  Run,  nearly  ten  miles  away.  The  cunning  old  fox 
had  made  a  long,  straight  run,  and  was  flying  for  his  very  life. 
The  weather  conditions  had  improved,  and  the  dogs  were  going 
like  a  pack  of  relentless,  merciless  wolves,  fast  and  furious, 
circling  round  and  round,  over  hills  and  up  and  down  valleys, 
crying  loud  for  the  blood  of  the  tired  fox.  But,  as  the  hunters 
rode  up,  the  dogs  made  a  sudden,  and  mysterious  loss;  they  had 
evidently  been  close  on  the  fox  but  he  had  dodged  them.  The 
older  hounds  hurried  to  the  riglit  and  left,  trying  to  make  off 
tlie  track,  but  in  vain.  The  quarry  had  disappeared.  Mr. 
Crawford  went  into  the  woods  where  the  loss  was  made  and 
gave  a  yell  to  encourage  the  faithful  dogs;  the  fox,  who  had 
squatted  under  a  fallen  tree  top,  rushed  out  and  ran  to  a  near-by 
den,  where  he  barely  saved  his  brush  by  an  inch  or  two.  The 
rascal  had  been  pushed  so  close  that  he  had  to  resort  to  a  dodge, 
and  slip  out  of  sight  beneath  the  brush ;  no  doubt  the  ruse  saved 
him.  Mr.  Garrett  saw  the  hounds  drive  him  to  earth,  and  it 
was  quite  a  feat  considering  the  day.     The  Crawford  pack  had 


34  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

acquitted  itself  well.  They  did  such  splendid  work  under 
adverse  circumstances  that  Mr.  Garrett  was  thoroughly  satisfied 
that  he  had  found  the  hound  that  he  would  cross  on  his  Georgia 
Julys.  He  purchased  the  best  dogs  that  Mr.  Crawford  would 
sell,  and  began  to  breed  to  them.  A  few  years  later  Mr. 
Crawford  died,  and  then  Mr.  Garrett  bought  the  remainder  of 
his  pack.  Some  of  them  were  kept ;  others  were  given  to  friends 
in  Georgia  and  Tennessee.  After  the  Crawford  hounds  were 
added,  the  Garrett  pack  included  such  famous  individuals  as 
Bill  Reid,  Bullet,  Rockwood,  Speed,  Julip,  and  Yenus.  Bill 
Reid  is  of  the  Sugar  Loaf  stock,  but  was  bred  by  Mr.  Grififee,  of 
Westminster.  He  went  to  Mr.  James  W.  Green,  of  Pulaski, 
Tenn. 

The  Sugar  Loaf  blood  is  well  grounded  in  Mr.  Garrett's 
kennels.  He  and  Mr.  Griff ee  have  some  great  champions  of  the 
Gosnell-Plummer  cross.  Grey  Bullet  was  bred  by  Mr.  Griffee, 
and  he  now  owns  Nellie,  who,  Mr.  Garrett  thinks,  is  the  best 
bitch  in  Maryland.  She  is  high-born,  handsomely  marked, 
cleverly  formed  and  fleet-footed.  She  looks  the  part  of  the 
queen  that  she  is,  and  it  is  sweet  to  hear  her  clarion  call  as  she 
drives  red  Reynard  over  hill  and  dale.  Nellie  is  a  July  (or 
Gosnell),  and  Sugar  Loaf  (or  Plummer)  cross.  She  has  twice 
been  bred  to  Trail,  another  beautiful  Sugar  Loaf -July  cross. 
Trail  is  related  to  Logan;  the  young  hound  who  won  the  en- 
durance cup  and  the  championship  all-age  stake  at  the  recent 
meet  of  the  Brunswick  Fur  Club  at  Barre,  Mass.  Mr.  Robert  F. 
Perkins,  of  Boston,  owns  Logan. 

The  story  of  Logan's  interesting  connection  and  career  is 
worth  knowing.  His  brother  Dan,  a  white  and  gold  brindle  dog, 
who  was  sent  by  Mr.  Garrett  to  one  of  his  Southern  friends, 
made  a  great  reputation  in  the  field;  he  won  the  laurels  in  a 
pack  of  eleven  carefully  bred  Kentucky  dogs — he  ran  them  out. 
The  constant  reports  of  Dan's  singular  performances,  while  in 
the  best  of  company  as  far  as  blood  is  concerned,  caused  Mr. 
Garrett  to  look  up  his  brothers,  and  other  dogs  of  that  particular 
cross.  He  found  Logan  in  the  lower  part  of  Carroll  county,  and 
purchased  him,  and  turned  him  over  to  Mr.  Griffee,  who  ran 
him  with  his  pack,  and  found  him  to  be  all  right. 

It  was  while  chasing  a  red  fox,  near  the  Griffee  farm,  one 
morning,  that  Logan  mysteriously  disappeared  and  was  not 
heard  of  again  for  three  days.     No  trace  of  him  could  be  had 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  35 

until  the  third  morning,  when  Mr.  Griffee  went  to  a  den  where 
his  hounds  had  treed  a  fox  and  saw  tlie  lost  Logan  standing 
there,  half  starved  and  nervous,  with  a  steel  trap  fastened  to  the 
toes  of  one  of  his  front  feet.  The  jaws  of  the  merciless  machine 
had  cut  the  flesh  to  the  bone.  For  three  days  Logan  had  been 
chained  to  a  post  in  the  field,  but  the  music  of  his  running  mates 
made  him  howl.  His  outcry  attracted  the  attention  of  a  farmer, 
who  was  willing  to  become  a  friend  in  need,  but  Logan,  not 
recognizing  him  as  such,  showed  fight,  and  in  scrambling 
around  broke  the  chain  and  ran  off,  carrying  the  trap  with  him. 
It  was  two  months  before  Logan  could  put  that  foot  to  the 
ground  and  it  looked  at  one  time  as  if  he  would  lose  the  use  of 
two  of  his  toe  nails. 

Becoming  interested  in  Mr.  Garrett's  dogs  Mr.  Perkins,  of 
Boston,  tried  to  get  a  cross  on  a  good  stallion  hound.  He  was 
desirous  of  improving  the  nose  and  endurance  of  his  dogs. 
Logan  was  sent  to  him,  recommended  as  a  good  pack  hound, 
with  gameness  and  stamina,  but  not  as  an  extra  individual.  At 
the  time,  however,  Mr.  Garrett  predicted  that  Logan  would  win 
on  endurance  at  the  Brunswick  Fur  Club  trials  under  favorable 
conditions.  Nevertheless,  Mr.  Garrett  was  very  much  surprised 
when  he  learned  that  Logan  had  been  so  successful  at  Barre,  es- 
pecially when  competing  with  many  of  the  leading  hounds  of 
the  land. 

There  are  some  breeders  who  do  not  like  the  Sugar  Loaf 
hound.  Recently  I  wrote  a  story  for  the  Sportsmen's  Review, 
giving  a  brief  history  of  the  Sugar  Loaf  strain,  and  within  a  few 
days  after  the  article  appeared  I  received  a  letter  from  a  well- 
known  hunter  whose  name  I  shall  not  give  here,  who  had  this  to 
say:  "I  have  just  finished  reading  your  interesting  story  of 
Garrett's  dogs.  I  wrote  a  piece  for  publication  about  the  Sugar 
Loaf  but  after  reading  your  praise  of  them  I  backed  down,  as  I 
did  not  wish  to  mar  any  laudation  of  them.  I  have  two  out  of 
B —  and  S — ,  sired  by  this  Bill  Reid  and  Bullet.  Speed  is  the 
same  that  you  spoke  of.  I  had  a  pair  of  half  breed,  July  and 
Sugar  Loaf,  sired  by  Bill  Reid,  and  dam,  a  pure  July  bitch.  This 
strain  of  dogs  has  hurt  my  sales  more  than  you  could  imagine." 

This  hunter  says  that  the  Sugar  Loaf  cross  on  his  Julys, 
which  he  has  never  found  lacking,  proved  a  failure.  He  claims 
that  they  quit. 

A  letter  from  another  sportsman  of  good  standing  has  a  word 


36  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

of  praise  for  the  brindle  dog.  Among  other  things  he  said:  "I 
have  read  your  piece  in  regard  to  the  Sugar  Loaf  hound,  and 
was  very  much  pleased  as  I  have  at  this  time  five  of  the  brindle 
dogs.  I  have  ovs^ned  the  brindle  hounds  for  thirty  years,  and 
they  have  been  in  in  my  neighborhood  since  1858,  and  I  don't 
believe  that  their  equal  for  endurance  is  to  be  found.  I  don't 
think  that  they  can  be  outrun.  I  have  run  with  Georgia, 
Kentucky  and  Virginia  dogs,  and  never  was  beaten.  I  could  tell 
you  of  some  instances  of  their  endurance  that  would  surprise 
you ;  and  I  can  prove  what  I  tell  you.  I  owned  a  brindle  bitch 
once  that  went  in  a  chase  after  a  deer,  and  after  four  hour's 
hard  running  caught  the  deer,  and  at  the  close  of  the  race  gave 
birth  to  one  puppy,  and  went  home  and  had  four  more.  I  took 
the  puppy  home  and  raised  it.  What  do  you  think  of  that  for 
the  brindles?  I  have  run  them  for  two  weeks  on  camp  hunts 
and  caught  seven  deer  in  one  week  (without  shooting  a  one  of 
them);  at  the  close  of  the  hunt  they  were  as  game  as  at  the 
start.  On  the  third  of  December  I  jumped  a  red  fox  and  caught 
him  in  one  hour.  I  have  caught  three  red  foxes  within  the  last 
month,  and  I  don't  believe  any  fox  can  outrun  them  in  this  open 
country,  or  stand  ahead  of  them  over  two  hours." 

Here  I  shall  rest  the  history  of  the  Sugar  Loaf  hound.  His 
color  is  a  little  off,  but  he  seems  to  be  a  pretty  tough  dog  in  the 
field  after  deer  and  foxes. 


THE  TRIGG  STRAIN. 
From  '*The  American  Foxhound,"  by  H.  C.  Trigg. 

From  1845  to  1860  we  o\NTied  a  pack  of  those  grand  old  long- 
eared,  rat-tail,  deep-toned,  black-and-tan  Virginia  foxhounds. 
In  those  happy,  by-gone  days  we  could  on  a  moonlight  niglit  ride 
to  the  covert  side,  throw  our  leg  over  the  pommel  of  our  saddle 
and  listen  for  hours  to  the  most  magnificent  music  made  by  the 
ever-to-be-remembered  dogs. 

But,  alas,  everything  must  have  an  end.  In  1860  the  red  fox 
first  made  his  advent  into  our  section,  and  the  days  of  these  dogs 
wer  ended.  The  coming  of  the  red  fox  made  a  great  change  in 
the  chase.  The  most  important  thing  was  to  get  a  dog  tliat 
could  successfully  walk  with  him.  With  us  it  required  years  of 
work,  patience,  considerable  expense,  and  a  world  of  trouble  to 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  B7 

gather  the  desired  pack.  We  are  now  on  the  shady  side  of  life 
and  wil  soon  have  to  bow  to  the  inevitable.  That  our  straxn  of 
dogs  of  which  we  feel  a  right  to  he  proud,  may  be  preserved  we 
ave'consented  to  give  a  brief  history  of  them  to  he  spor^sn^en 
of  America,  believing  that  by  great  care  m  selecting,  judicious 
bretd  ng  ami  constant  hunting  for  the  past  thirty-five  years,  we 
have  ;"okuced  a  dog  that  can  successfully  compete  with  the  red 

*1„  1866  we  opened  up  a  correspondence  7*'>  «e  L  F^ 
Birdsong,  of  Thomaston,  Georgia,  and  purchased  of  hmi  that 
year  and  in  1867  the  following  dogs,  paying  these  prices: 

Chase  and  Bee  (by  Longstreet ) ^^^^Z 

Geokge .'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.  100^00 

^^^ 100.00 

Fannie 

Lee  was  presented  to  us. 

In  1868  we  visited  Mr.  Birdsong  and  spent  a  week  with  1  in 
H  was  then  in  feeble  health,  in  fact  «--7«\,-*,f«„ 
terrible  disease,  consumption,  from  which  he  died  the  18  h  of 
August  the  following  year.  He  was  able  take  us  on  bn  one 
hunt,  when  we  caught  a  red  fox  in  forty-five  -^'^^'^^  Z' ^t- 
pected  that  the  fox  was  not  in  condition  to  run,  and  held  a  post 
mortem,  hut  found  nothing  wrong  with  hmi. 

Mr  Birdsong  then  had  in  his  kennel-we  had  him  m  the  hunt 

_r  dog  that  has  been  talked  about  a  great  deal  in    ate  years 

..July  ?•    We  also  had  in  the  pack  three  of  his  get,  I  think  then 

juiy.        vvea  .'Madcan"    "Lightfoot,"    and 

about   three   years   old,    i.    e.       Madcap,  f,„,.,  ,„  i,jg 

"Echo."    He  also  had  three  yearlmgs  out  of     Echo     by  Ins 

celebrated  dog,   "Longstreet,"   i.   e.    "Delta,"    "Dnmas,      and 

^™"    By  Pegging  two  days  and  paying  five  bundled  dollars 

,*500    he  let  us  have  "Lightfoot"  and  "Delta."    In  addition  to 

re'w':  purchased  of  Colonel  R.  H.  Ward,  of  Green  «, 

Georgia    "Forest,"  by  "Boston,"  paying  one  hundred  dollais, 

fnd  "Emma"  at  the  sime  figures.    "Rose,"  a  full  sister  to  Echo 

by  July,  and  "Hampton,"  we,.,  loaned  us.    Rose,  we  returned 

after  sl^  had  whelped,  but  Hampton  died  in  our  kJnnel  a  few 

months  after  we  received  liim. 

In  86?  we  visited  General  G.  W.  Maupin  of  Madison  county^ 
Kentucky  and  was  present  at  the  great  match  race  between  Ben 
"son,  of  Montgomery  county  and  General  Maupin^  Tins 
meet  took  place  at  Oil  Spring,  in  Clark  county,  and  was  much 


38  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

talked  of  by  hunters  everywhere  at  that  time.  After  the  race 
we  accompanied  General  Maupin  home,  spending  several  days 
hunting  with  him.  On  our  departure  we  purchased  of  him  a 
young  bitch  called  "Minnie,"  that  was  one  or  two  crosses  from 
his  celebrated  dog,  "Tennessee  Lead,"  on  one  side,  and  the  im- 
ported English  dogs  on  the  other.  Colonel  O.  J.  Walker  at  the 
same  time  gave  us  a  young  bitch  called  "Mattie,"  the  pedigree 
of  which  is  the  same  as  that  seen  in  Colonel  Walker's  letter 
herein.     Both  of  these  were  proud,  magnificent  foxliounds. 

In  1869  we  visited  W.  L.  Waddy  and  Thomas  Ford  of  Shelby 
county,  who  had  a  splendid  pack  of  the  Maupin  strain  of  dogs. 
We  hunted  some  days  with  these  gentlemen.  Mr.  Waddy  was 
so  well  pleased  with  our  dogs  that  he  requested  us  on  our  de- 
parture to  take  some  of  his  best  dogs  with  us  and  test  their 
qualities.  We  selected  three,  i.  e.  "Tip,"  "Waxy,"  and  his 
celebrated  dog,  "One  Eyed  King."  This  last  dog  was  closely 
related  to  Mr.  Maupin 's  "Lead"  and  the  English  importation 
of  1857.  We  hunted  these  dogs  about  six  months.  The  dog 
"King"  was  a  wonderful  animal  for  speed,  and  dead  game, 
though  deficient  in  nose.  We  crossed  him  on  Delta  (by  Long- 
street  out  of  Echo  by  July)  and  succeeded  in  raising  two 
puppies,  a  dog  and  a  bitch.  The  dog  we  kept  and  called 
"Money."  He  was  the  fastest  dog  we  ever  owned,  but  not  so 
game  as  others  of  our  pack.  The  bitch  pup  we  sent  to  Mr. 
Waddy  and  he  called  her  "Echo."  She  proved  to  be  superior  to 
anything  in  Mr.  Waddy 's  pack.  The  following  year  Mr,  Waddy 
and  Thomas  Ford  paid  us  a  visit.  On  their  return  we  let  them 
take  our  celebrated  dog  "Forest."  They  had  some  bitches 
served  by  him,  the  produce  being,  like  that  of  King  and  Delta, 
superior  to  any  dogs  they  had  previously  owned.  We  submit 
letters  herewith  bearing  us  out  in  these  statements. 

About  four  years  ago  we  got  of  Mr.  E.  T.  Halsey,  of 
Louisville,  an  imported  dog,  "Portland,"  from  the  "Quorn 
Kennels,"  England.  This  dog,  like  all  other  imported  dogs  that 
we  have  ever  seen,  was  too  large  for  our  country.  He  was  de- 
ficient in  nose,  speed  and  ranging  qualities — in  fact  a  failure. 
We  bred  him  to  a  few  of  our  bitches  and  the  produce  proved 
fairly  good.  We  think  by  three  or  four  crosses  they  will  make 
fine  animals.  About  the  same  time  W.  S.  Walker,  of  Garrard 
county,  Kentucky,  was  kind  enough  to  send  us  one  of  his  stud 
dogs,  whicli  we  crossed  on  some  of  our  best  bitches,  the  produce 


THE  AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  39 

proving  very  satisfactory.  Mr.  Walker  is  an  experienced,  practi- 
cal sportsman,  has  a  fine  pack  of  clogs  and  is  doing  a  great  deal 
toward  improving  the  foxhound  in  Kentucky. 

From  1867  to  1890  we  have  had  in  our  kennel  tlie  following 
dogs,  of  the  pure  Birdsong,  Maupin  and  Walker  strains,  whicli 
we  begged,  borrowed,  and  bought  for  tJie  purpose  of  improving 
our  pack:  Maupin's  Minnie,  Mattie,  Lead,  Couchman,  Bob, 
Dick,  Milton,  Blucher,  Mac,  Raiby  (called  Redhead),  Tip, 
Waxey,  One  Eyed  King,  Haefer's  Dick,  Rock,  Venus,  Lee, 
Mercy,  Brenda.  Birdsong's  Chase,  Bee,  George,  Lightfoot, 
Delta,  Rip,  Fannie,  Lee,  Forest,  Emma,  Hampton,  Ward. 
Walker's  Buckner,  Scott,  Trooper. 

General  Maupin,  the  Walkers,  Sam  Martin,  Gentrys,  Whites, 
and  others  of  that  section,  were  honest  in  their  belief  that  Fox, 
Rifle,  Marth,  Queen,  Tennessee  Lead,  Tickler,  Doc,  Kate,  Top, 
Toe-String,  Minnie,  and  other  famous  dogs  of  their  packs,  were 
superior  to  any  dogs  of  tlieir  day.  Mr.  Birdsong,  the  Wards, 
Robinsons,  Ridgleys,  Jacksons,  and  others,  of  Georgia,  were 
equally  as  confident  that  Hodo,  July,  Longstreet,  Flora,  Forest, 
Echo,  Hampton,  Madcap,  Lightfoot,  Fannie,  and  others  of  their 
packs,  were  the  peers  of  any  living  dogs.  Mr.  Waddy  and  Tom 
Ford,  of  Shelby  county,  Ky.,  thought  as  well  of  their  One  Eyed 
King,  Tip,  Josephine,  Venus,  and  others.  W.  S.  Walker,  whose 
letter  is  given,  states  his  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of  Trooper. 

We  differ  from  some  men  who  make  the  bold  assertion  that 
they  have  the  best  dogs  on  earth.  Because  a  favorite  dog  runs 
in  the  lead  of  a  certain  pack  does  not  warrant  his  admirers  in 
stating  he  can  beat  all  alike.  Dogs  are  like  race-horses;  they 
are  the  best  until  they  meet  their  superiors.  The  true  sportsman 
is  never  so  prejudiced  as  not  to  admit  that  there  may  be  other 
dogs  equal  to  his  own,  and  that  by  crossing  on  such  dogs  his 
strain  would  be  improved. 


BIRDSONG  AND  MAUPIN  DOQS. 

From  "The  American  Foxhound,"  by  H.  C.  Trigg. 

Of  the  men  who  have  passed  from  the  stage  of  life,  none  de- 
serve the  gratitude  of  the  lovers  of  the  chase  more  than  George 
L.  F.  Birdsong,  of  Georgia,  and  General  G.  W.  Maupin,  of 
Madison  county,  Kentucky. 


40  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

In  the  early  forties  Dr.  T.  Y.  Henry  (grandson  of  Patrick 
Henry),  of  Virginia,  presented  George  L.  F.  Birdsong,  of 
Thomaston,  Georgia,  with  a  pair  of  puppies  from  his  pack  of 
hounds,  which  at  that  time  had  made  an  enviable  reputation  in 
Virginia.  Mr.  Birdsong  sent  a  wagon  overland  (there  being  no 
railroad  at  that  time),  for  the  dogs.  They  proved  to  be  superior 
to  any  dogs  he  had  owned  up  to  that  time.  In  1844  or  1845,  Dr. 
Henry,  being  threatened  with  that  dreaded  disease,  consumption, 
was  ordered  South  by  his  physician.  He  started,  traveling 
leisurely  by  wagon,  accompanied  by  a  party  of  friends,  carrying 
his  fine  kennel  of  hounds  with  him,  stopping  at  different  points, 
putting  in  the  time  hunting  and  fishing  as  it  suited  their  fancy. 
Mr.  Birdsong,  being  informed  of  his  movements,  intercepted  Dr. 
Henry  en  route,  spending  some  days  with  him. 

On  reaching  Florida,  the  deer  being  plentiful,  Dr.  Henry's 
dogs  frequently  ran  them,  when  they  would  always  take  to  the 
bayous  and  lagoons.  When  swimming  after  the  game  the  dogs 
would  be  killed  by  alligators  that  infested  these  waters.  Dr. 
Henry  soon  realized  that  his  much-prized  pack  would  be  ex- 
terminated if  something  was  not  done.  He  wrote  the  facts  to 
his  friend,  Mr.  Birdsong,  telling  him  that  he  might  have  the 
remnant  of  his  famous  pack  if  he  would  come  after  them.  Mr. 
Birdsong,  while  sympathizing  with  his  friend  in  his  misfortune, 
was  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  secure  these  much-coveted  dogs, 
and  at  once  started  after  them. 

Dr.  Henry  called  them  Irish  hounds,  they  being  descendants 
of  "Mountain"  and  "Muse,"  imported  from  Ireland  by  Bolton 
Jackson,  of  Maryland,  and  presented  by  him  to  Captain  Sterrett 
Ridgely.  He  gave  them  to  Governor  Ogle,  of  Maryland.  He 
gave  Mountain  to  Captain  Charles  Carroll,  of  CarroUton.  He 
gave  him  to  Dr.  Buchanan,  and  he  gave  Captain  (a  direct 
descendant  of  Mountain  and  Muse)  to  Dr.  Henry.  See  Turf 
Register  Vol.  3,  pp.  287,  350  and  403;  Vol.  4,  pp.  234  and  397. 
This  was  the  foundation  of  the  celebrated  Birdsong  dogs.  In 
1861  the  famous  dog  "July,"  imported  into  Georgia  by  Miles  G. 
Harris,  who  purchased  him  of  Gosnell,  of  Maryland,  was  crossed 
on  the  Birdsong  dogs.  From  letters  in  our  possession  and 
private  conversation  with  Mr.  Birdsong,  we  are  satisfied  that 
this  dog  "July"  was  of  the  same  strain  of  old  "Captain"  and  the 
original  Henry  dogs. 

These  dogs  were  called  "Irish  hounds"  by  Dr.  Henry.     Mr. 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 


41 


Birdsong  insisted  that  they  be  known  as  the  "Henry  l^-nds/^ 

they  have  been  called  indiscriminately  the  "July  honnd. 

The  sportsmen  of  Georgia  will  pardon  us  for  expressing  the 
optaL'that  the  name  "Jnly"  should  never  have  ^-n  suhsti 
/i.  ^  4^^v  ''-Rirfl^oTiff  "  We  are  aware  of  the  fact  that  a  great 
difference  of  SSon  exisid  among  the  sportsmen  of  Georgia  as 
to^he  relative  merits  of  the  dogs  after  the  crossing  of  them  on 
tothereiati  ^^^^  ^^^.^^^^  Birdsong  dogs 

^,  no3:  ol  J^ly  lu  them  unless  tlirough  the  original 
importation  of  the  the  dogs  Mountain  and  Muse. 

We  owned  and  hunted  the  get  of  both  Longstreet  and  July 
and  have  our  opinion  of  the  relative  merits  of  their  produce, 
'irearly 'fifties  General  Maupin  and  his  «ends^mp^ted 
many   dogs  from    South    Carolina,    Virginia     and    Maryland, 
Tptlg  no  expense  to  imp-ve  their  stock      In      o^hey  im- 

Tr:L    TLl    "Tennessee    -^^  ^^^  j^  , -^S; 

rgr"sp"/t :  ?;irctssrtirptious  nfpor^ 

tTonrpr  Iced  Jdog  which  has  justly  become  famou^  and 
was  known  as  the  "Maupin"  dog.    Thisst^m  has  been  pre 
served  and  bred  with  great  care  by  W.  S.  ^^^''J\^^°'^^^ 
Ga^rd  county,  Ky.,  and  are  known  to-day  as  the  Walker  dogs. 

THE  JULY  STRAIN. 
By  W.  H.  Uuttrell,  Waverly  Hall,  Oa. 

Tn  tliis  history  of  the  July  fodiounds,  dating  from  their  intro- 
du^ti^  in  Sia.  I  shall'give  what  information  I  have,  with 
as  little  comment  as  possible.  ^^i,,,/i    hack  in 

These  dogs  were  brought  to  Georgia  from  Maryland,  back  m 
thfrixties^  by  Mr.   MUes  a  Harns,  of  H  nco- 

^f^-tSXr 5  — fr;  Tfn  4--n  Of  -un^ 
Sterling^  Ky.,  w.0  XtL^^^^Z  ^^^uf:^^! ^■ 
farf^fXt     Mr. 'Cfwas  wealthy,  and  a  fox-hunter  of 


42  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

the  old  school,  and  had  a  pack  of  the  common  Georgia  fox- 
hounds that  were  used  as  negro  dogs  as  well  as  fox  hounds;  they 
could  kill  a  gray  fox  in  two  or  three  hour's  race,  and  gave  fine 
sport.  Long  before  this  Mr.  George  Birdsong  and  a  fox-liunting 
club  at  Thomaston,  Ga.,  sent  to  Virginia  and  Vermont  and 
bought  about  forty  red  foxes,  and  turned  them  loose  on  Pine 
Mountain,  which  runs  east  and  west  from  the  Flint  River  to  the 
Chattahoochee  River,  seventy-five  or  a  hundred  miles.  The 
Civil  War  stopped  fox-hunting  in  Georgia  for  six  or  seven  years. 
This  gave  time  for  these  foxes  to  multiply  and  fill  the  whole 
country;  they  began  to  branch  out  over  the  whole  of  Middle 
Georgia.  Mr.  Harris  would  occasionally  run  on  one  and  his 
pack  couldn't  even  make  them  take  a  hole  after  running  two  or 
three  packs  down  in  one  race. 

Mr.  Robertson  had  the  Maryland  dogs  and  had  been  running 
them  for  quite  a  while;  he,  it  was,  that  induced  Mr.  Harris  to  go 
to  Kentucky  with  him  and  see  his  dogs,  also  to  go  to  Baltimore 
with  him,  then  into  Howard  county,  Md.,  and  see  the  parties 
that  had  the  hounds  and  hunt  with  them  a  week  or  two.  Mr. 
Harris  went  to  Kentucky  with  Mr.  Robertson,  and  tlien  they 
both  went  to  Maryland.  There  they  went  hunting  with  Messrs. 
Nimrod  Gosnell,  George  W.  Linthicum,  and  John  T.  Hardey, 
near  Roxbury  Mills,  in  Howard  county,  also  with  Mr.  A. 
Winters,  at  Westminster,  in  Carroll  county.  When  Mr.  Harris 
left  for  his  home  in  Georgia,  Mr.  Gosnell  presented  him  with  a 
pair  of  pups  of  this  breed.  Mr.  Harris  brought  them  home,  and 
they  were  a  show  to  all  who  went  to  see  them ;  they  said  they 
were  cur  dogs.  Mr.  Harris  turned  them  over  to  his  overseer,  Mr. 
McMillan,  to  raise.  Mr.  McMillan  raised  them,  and  when  they 
were  grown  the  bitch  went  into  heat,  and  while  tied  up  in  a  gin- 
house,  she  jumped  out  through  a  window  and  hung  herself.  Mr. 
Harris  named  this  pair  of  dogs  June  and  July.  When  the  dog 
July  was  old  enough  he  put  him  with  his  pack  and  went 
hunting,  and  when  they  jumped  a  red  fox,  July  ran  off  from  the 
rest  of  the  pack,  got  the  fox  to  himself,  and  killed  it.  This  was 
about  the  first  red  fox  that  Harris'  dogs  had  caught,  and  the 
news  spread  to  all  the  noted  hunters  in  Middle  Georgia;  they 
came  to  see  him;  they  bred  to  him  from  all  points — George 
Birdsong  of  Thomaston,  Harvey  Dennis  of  Eatonton,  Ward, 
Kilpatrick,  and  Hampton  Ridley  of  Jones  county,  who  kept  the 
old  dog  until  his  death,  and  then  put  a  tombstone  over  his  grave 


THE  AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  43 

which  is  there  now,  although  Mr.   Ridley  died  last  year  and 
Totaed  Dennis,  Birdsong,  and  a  numher  of  other  good  men 
^'oYer  the  river."    These  were  some  of  the  best  men  and  best 
iZers  in  Georgia.    Prom  George  Birdsong  I  learned  the  hab.ts 
nf  thp  red  fox,  and  bow  to  hunt  him. 

Old  My  w^s  a  medium  sized  dog,  weighing  about   orty-eight 
or  fifty  pounds,  close  made,  with  a  very  short  ear  to  a  pomt, 
head  shaped  like  like  a  fox's  i>ead,  broad  forehead  and  sharp 
nose;  he  was  brownish  gray  in  color,  long  hair  -"  *»  ^^ 
curly  with  a  fine  coat  of  fur  under  this  hair  just  hke  a  red  fox 
"'with  a  heavy  brush  or  flag  to  his  tail,  ^^oc^Jro^^Z, 
short  back,  and  a  big,  round  foot  hke  a  wild-cat     This  dog 
could  outrun  any  red  fox  in  Georgia  or  anywhere  el  e,  and  kiU  i^ 
by  himself.    Blessed  be  the  name  of  old  J^^^-^^  f°!  *"^^ 
whom  the  July  hounds  in  Georgia  got  their  name.    Letters  from 
Mr.  Robertson  in  1872  and  '78  gave  this  i"*°™f  7„  ,, .    ^.^  t^ 
I  sent  a  young  man  from  a  commercial  school  at  Baltimore  to 
see  Sr  Wtoters  at  Westminster,  Carroll  county,  Md.    I  first  got 
Mr.   Go^ell's  address,  and  all  these  men  in  Maryland,  from 
Messrs.  Harris  and  Robertson.  ,     ^    „  ,      ,    T,,,„t  piee 

The  first  dogs  I  bought  in  Maryland,  Hyland,  Black  llee, 
Stinger^d  Lucy,  were  from  Mr.  Winters,  taking  the  advice  of 
M    IXtson,  who  had  a  bitch  called  Fury,  that  1-  go'  from 
Mr  Winters;  she  was  the  fastest  and  best  dog  he  ever  bought  in 
Marjand.    iucy  was  the  mother  of  Fury;  Mr.  B— "-^^ 
Mr.  Winters  both  said  so  in  letters  to  me     Shortly  after  this  I 
bought  Palmer  and  Red  Boston,  then  ^lo^^^^f  ^^^^.^^^^ 
Mr.  Winters  bred  Lucy  twice  (before  I  got  her),  first  to  G-nelU 
Bloomer,  and  later  to  Linthicum's  Boston.    Hyland,  B^ck  Flee 
Stineer   Palmer,  Red  Boston,  and  Flora,  were  from  Lucy  and 
Itsnell's  Bloom;r.    Big  Boston  was  from  Lucy  and  Lmthicum's 
Boston      Lucy  was  pedigreed  to  me  as  an  English  dog  iinportod 
by  G?v  Ogle  of  Maryland.    She  was  a  large  bitch,  well  made 
7hite  with  gray  spots,  cream-colored  ears,  with  a  large  e^ ,  she 
ran  with  head  up  and  tail  down,  voice  short  and  quick,  ana 
ZxlL^  any  pa'ck,  and  kill  any  red  fox.    The  others  were  ,ust 
as  good;  they  had  instincts  for  fox  like  a  bird  dog  has  for  birds, 
and  were  as  ambitious  as  tigers. 

In  the  meantime  Mr.  Winters  sent  me  old  Foo^-a  P^P  *-^ 
Lucy  and  a  full  brother  to  Robertson's  Pury-as  ^  Christmas 
gift     Foot  had  a  head  just  like  old  July's,  color  whit*,  with 


44  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

black  covering  half  his  body,  brindle  ears,  big  brush  to  his  tail, 
a^d  an  eye  as  big  as  a  deer's;  he  weighed  sixty-five  pounds,  liad 
a  strong  back,  and  good  bone.  Besides  buying  other  hounds  from 
Mr.  Winters,  I  also  purchased  dogs  from  Messrs.  J.  T.  Hardey, 
G.  W.  Linthicum,  and  Nimrod  Gosnell,  of  Howard  county,  Md. 
I  bought  twenty-three  of  these  dogs  from  Maryland. 

I  had  several  letters  from  Mr.  Gosnell.  He  also  sent  me  his 
picture,  and  from  which  he  appeared  to  be  then  well  advanced 
in  years.  I  also  had  several  letters  from  Mr.  Robertson  in  regard 
to  these  dogs,  and  his  pack,  which  were  of  the  same  blood  as  my 
dogs. 

I  have  handled  this  breed  of  hounds  for  several  years,  and  my 
opinion  is  that  they  are  the  best  red  fox  dogs  in  the  United 
States. 

May  this  history  I  have  given  you  be  perpetuated,  and  this 
breed  of  hounds  live  until  the  end  of  time. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  JULY  FOXHOUND. 
By  A.  C.  Heffenger,  M.  D. 

If  there  is  a  patent  of  nobility  for  the  hound  world,  then  that 
patent  belongs  to  the  famous  Irish  or  July  foxliounds.  Possibly 
no  foxhounds  in  America  can  show  a  more  ancient,  unbroken 
and  aristocratic  lineage  than  these  phenomenal  descendants  of 
Erin's  green  isle.  In  looking  over  my  Kennel  Stud  Book  I  find 
those  in  New  England  strain  back  through  the  purest  Irish  blood 
for  fourteen  generations  to  the  original  emigrant  Irish  hounds. 
Mountain  and  Muse,  imported  into  Maryland  by  Mr.  Bolton 
Jackson  in  1812,  and  passing  from  him  through  Col.  Sterrett 
Ridgely  to  Mr.  Charles  Carroll,  Jr.,  the  descendant  of  the 
famous  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  to  be  bred  at 
liis  country-seat,  Homewood.  These  hounds  were  presented  in 
large  numbers  to  Virginia  sportsmen,  and  especially  to  Robbin 
Pollard  and  Capt.  Littlepage  of  King  William  county,  and  Mr. 
Bromley  and  Gen.  Chamberlayne  of  New  Kent  county. 

Going  back  through  these  fourteen  generations,  their  progeni- 
tors include  such  grand  hounds  as  Hamp,  Nero  Childs,  Light- 
foot,  Longstreet,  Obie,  July,  Hodo,  Ringgold,  Old  Captain  and 
Traveller,  the  last  a  Mountain-Muse  pup. 

Mr.  George  J.  Garrett  of  Green  Spring  Valley,  Md.,  has  the 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  45 

stock  in  its  greatest  purity,  and  carefully  guards  his  out-crosses 
to  maintain  original  characteristics. 

Looking  into  the  breeding  of  all  the  now  well-known  working 
strains  of  foxliounds  of  the  South,  it  will  be  found  that  July 
blood  leavens  most  of  them.  Their  short,  choppy  notes  are 
found  wherever  a  trace  of  their  blood  exists.  This  prepotency  is 
something  wonderful,  and  proves  the  Irish  hound  to  be  the 
strongest  blooded  and  most  distinct  of  the  hound  family  in  the 
South. 

The  Goodmans,  or  more  properly  speaking,  the  Robertson- 
Maupin  cross,  get  their  fifty  to  seventy  per  cent  of  Irish  blood 
through  Tickler,  Whitey  and  Fury.  The  Trigg  hounds  are  Irish 
crossed  on  Maupin-Walker  blood  and  native  Kentucky.  Col. 
Trigg  visited  Mr.  Birdsong  and  bought  a  large  number  of 
hounds  from  him,  and  on  his  return  to  Kentucky  with  these 
Birdsong  Julys,  bred  them  as  before  stated.  All  that  is  best  in 
the  Wild  Goose  strain  comes  from  the  Irish,  both  through 
Birdsong's  kennels  and  Ben  Robertson's;  Callie  Gates,  Mr. 
Lewis'  best  bitch,  was  bred  to  Longfellow,  a  hound  which 
strains  back  to  the  Robertson-Maupin  cross. 

The  following  notes,  taken  from  the  old  American  Turf 
Register  and  Sporting  Magazine,  volume  3,  Nos.  6,  7,  8,  10, 
February,  1832,  a  copy  of  which  is  now  owned  by  Major  G.  V. 
Young,  Waverly,  Miss.,  gives  us  some  idea  of  the  Irish  hound  in 
his  days  of  greatest  purity : 

No.  6. — "The  most  remarkable  and  distinct  family  of  hounds 
recollected  in  Maryland  sprang  from  two  that  were  brought 
some  twenty  odd  years  since  from  Ireland  by  Bolton  Jackson, 
Esq.  They  fell  into  the  hands  of  Col.  Sterrett  Ridgely,  at  that 
time  one  of  the  most  gallant  horsemen,  as  well  as  one  of  the 
most  ardent  and  most  hospitable  sportsmen  in  the  state.  They 
were  remarkable  as  were  their  descendants,  according  to  their 
degree  of  the  original  blood,  for  great  speed  and  perse verence, 
extreme  ardor,  and  for  casting  aliead  at  a  loss;  and  in  this,  and 
their  shrill,  chopping,  unmusical  notes,  they  were  distinguished 
from  the  old  stock  of  that  day,  which,  when  they  came  to  a  loss, 
would  go  back,  and  dwelling,  take  it  along  inch  by  inch,  until 
they  got  fairly  off  again,  whilst  these  Irish  hounds  would  cast 
widely,  and  by  making  their  hit  ahead  would  keep  their  game  at 
the  top  of  his  speed,  and  break  him  do^^^l  in  the  first  half  hour. 
The  blood  of  these  Irish  dogs  before  mentioned  is  to  be  found,  as 


46  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

I  have  understood,  Mr.  Editor,  for  I  have  never  had  the  pleasure 
to  follow  them,  in  more  unmixed  purity  in  Mr.  Ogle's  pack,  at 
Belle  Air,  than  anywhere  in  Maryland.  His  stallion  hound  for 
some  years  was  old  Mountain,  and  from  his  loins  it  is  supposed 
his  pack  has  sprung.  He  was  a  very  compact  dog  of  middling 
size,  and  what  in  cattle,  in  England,  is  called  flecked,  not 
spotted,  with  large,  dull,  blue-grayish  splotches.  Such,  at  least, 
was  his  appearance  when  I  saw  him  at  Homewood,  the  residence 
of  C.  Carroll,  Jr.,  to  whom  he  had  been  presented  by  Mr.  Ogle. 
But  the  handsomest,  and,  from  what  I  saw  of  his  performance  in 
one  hunt,  when  a  large  red  was  run  into  in  fifteen  minutes,  the 
most  perfect  and  powerful  hound  I  ever  beheld  on  a  drag,  or 
when  running  to  kill,  was  one  which  you  told  me  had  been  sent 
to  you  at  the  instance  of  the  hospitable  General  Chamberlayne, 
of  New  Kent,  in  Virginia.*    Venator." 

No.  7. — Venator  lias  but  done  justice  to  old  Mountain  and  his 
descendants.  Mr.  Ogle  presented  me  one  couple  which  exactly 
answer  your  description,  and  are  first  rate  dogs.  A  Northern 
Necker." 

No.  8.— Selections  by  editor's  staff  from  fox-hunting  corre- 
spondence: "In  Essex  county,  Virginia,  they  have  had  some  fine 
sport  since  the  weather  moderated.  There  they  have  some  of 
Mr.  Ogle's  stock  of  Irish  dogs,  but  they  claim  that  they  are 
unmusical.  They  do  not  give  tongue  freely,  and  their  notes  are 
chopping  and  shrill.  By  the  bye,  we  have  a  portrait  of  Mr. 
Ogle's  famous  bitch,  Sophy — the  leader  of  the  pack— to  be  en- 
graved on  the  same  plate,  or  lithographed  on  stone,  with  the 
portraiture,  which  we  will  have  taken  of  any  hound  equally 
distinguished  that  any  gentleman  will  give  us." 

No.  10.— Showing  that  Mr.  Robbin  Pollard's  celebrated  dogs 
were  of  Irish  blood.  ". . .  .Unluckily,  however,  after  pursuing 
the  drag  from  the  slashes,  where  it  was  first  struck,  up  into  the 
piney  lands  upon  the. hills  adjacent,  some  confusion  occurred 
among  the  hounds ;  and  the  fox  was  unkenneled  at  some  distance 
from  the  main  pack  by  two  young  dogs  whose  notes  were  un- 
Ifnown  to  me,  and  off  they  went  down  into  the  slashes,  and  be- 
fore I  could,  with  all  my  exertions,  break  off  from  the  drag  the 
balance  of  the  pack,  these  two  dogs  had  run  nearly  out  of 
hearing.  We  pursued  with  all  possible  speed,  and  after  a  run  of 
about  two  miles  came  up  with  them  at  the  main  road  and  at 
*This  hound  was  a  pup  of  Mountain. 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  47 

^  u  TJo  Pollard  King  William  county,  Va."  The  credit  of 
::  a.S:g^h~.ni  Jent  hounds  i.to  New  En.W  .« 
to  tlie  Brunswick  Foxhound  Club,  a  syndicate  of  its  members 
Ling  bought  Wheeler  and  Luce  from  Georgia  some  years  ago, 
and  others  following  later. 

THE  ROBERTSON  STRAIN. 

Ibetontas  "r^  1^ 'import  fo^iounds  to  Kentucky 
from  Maryland.  Sterling  Hunting  Club  Rooms, 

Mt  Steeling,  Ky.,  Jan.  25,  1883. 

•^^^rj-sl  r:.^tiENi>:     T..  puppies  I  se^a  you  f .  you^ 
«ends  Messrs.  Loekri^^^^^^^^^^ 

r^er;^";rodb1a;h  M:Uie%y  AlexaLer  ScoWs  fan^us 
dog  Foot  Mollie  is  a  light  red  color,  of  beautiful  form  and 
handsome  carriage,  who  dishonored  not  her  mother  but  attest 
the  blood  of  her  ancestor,  who  was  a  copy  to  dogs  ot  grosser 
blood  and  less  note,  and  taught  them  how  to  ramble  mttie 
woods  She  by  Heart,  a  fine  and  splendid  rminer ;  he  by  Socks, 
ttie  champion  It  his  pack,  and  he  by  Mack,  the  famous  son  of  L 

rcIrk.sUiester,  who  -^^^^^^^TT^^  sC 
nntirine  progeny,  and  was  a  full  bi other  to  i.  x  .  ^^^  » 

«ie  world's  fam'ous  shaggy,  from  whom  our  pack  *^-ecl  «.e 
name  of  Shaggies,  who  was  as  noted  and  as  f^et  -  Mcf^md^ 
«wift  footed  Selim  of  Revolutionary  renown,  and  also  tlie  lauie 
rfS    S   Fiber's  intrepid  Red  Buck,  whose  countenance  was  as 

=i-frgi^e^i^?i^^ 
SmnnreSdirirrsbioitg^^^^^^^ 

Tsh     wWr7ed  herself   with    electric    speed    over    brush  ^nd 
bramble,  hedge,  fen  and  fern,  moss  and  moor,  hill  and  dale, 


48  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

dashing  herself  recklessly  through  the  woods,  like  the  surging 
billows  of  the  wild  and  wasteful  ocean.  She  was  a  sister  to  May, 
who  was  so  distinguished  that  his  seed  is  almost  as  numerous  as 
that  old  Israelite,  whose  seed  outnumbered  the  sands  of  the 
shore,  the  leaves  of  the  forest  and  tlie  stars  of  the  firmament. 

Jake  was  a  brother  of  Benj.  Robertson's  Tickler,  of  whom  it 
was  said  Kentucky  never  had  a  hound  before  his  day ;  he  in  his 
day  and  Fury  in  her  day,  like  Alexander  the  Great,  conquered 
every  pack  on  the  continent  and  howled  for  another  pack  to 
conquer.  He  was  by  Worthington's  Ringwood,  he  by  Hood's 
Vesper,  he  from  a  brach  imported  from  Ireland  by  Gen.  Ridgely, 
of  Baltimore,  all  running  far  back  to  the  family  of  royal  blood. 
Mollie  is  from  Silk,  a  Georgian  by  birtli ;  her  father  was  a  Cuban 
bloodhound ;  her  limbs  were  made  for  war  proof ;  the  luster  of 
her  eye,  the  scent  of  her  nose,  and  her  speed  proved  that  she  was 
worthy  of  her  breeding.  She  was  as  beautiful  as  the  butterfly,  as 
it  sprang  from  the  worm  that  spun  the  web  that  was  woven  into 
and  composed  the  beautiful  fabric  from  which  she  took  her  name. 

Foot  is  by  Old  Whitey,  imported  by  Benj.  Robertson,  from 
Maryland,  of  the  royal  family.  Foot  is  nearly  an  alabaster 
white,  with  Egyptian  spots,  and  beautiful  cerulean  fringe,  and 
has  a  grand  and  noble  form  and  handsome  carriage,  and  is  the 
hero  of  our  pack.  He  is  from  Fury,  whose  very  name  bears  with 
it  speed,  strength,  durability,  honor  and  greatness.  She  was  also 
imported  from  Maryland  by  Benj.  Robertson.  She  is  also  the 
mother  of  Gen.  R.  L.  Williams'  fine  dogs,  Boston,  Blanche  and 
Fury;  I.  F.  Calk's  John;  James  Scobee's  Lick;  S.  S.  Fizer's 
Winder  and  Ringwood;  also  mother  to  J.  P.  Games'  Mary,  all  of 
glorious  fame  and  renown.  Fury  was  the  champion  of  her  race. 
She  won  her  fame  in  many  a  hard-contested  heat ;  and  wore  her 
laurels  with  honor  till  the  day  of  her  death,  like  a  garland  of 
flowers  around  her  neck,  wreathed  by  fairy  fingers,  entwined 
with  roses  of  red  and  ribbons  of  blue,  fanned  by  the  breezes  of 
Summer  and  the  zephyrs  of  Autumn,  after  many  a  glorious 
victory.  Speed  she  had  deserving  to  lead.  Her  lustrous  deeds 
did  blind  men's  eyes  with  tlieir  beams.  Her  voice  spread  wider 
than  a  dragon's  wings.  Her  sparkling  eye  replete  with  wrathful 
fire  more  dazzling,  and  drove  back  her  enemies  more  than  mid- 
day's sun  fierce  bent  against  their  faces.  Her  deeds  excelled  all 
speech.  She  never  trailed  a  reynard  nor  tracked  a  deer  but 
conquered.     The  blood  of  her  stock  is  of  that  nature  which 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 


49 


courses  through  the  natural  alleys  and  gates  of  the  body  m 
^gular  gra^lation  showing  the  blood  and  speed  m  the  luster  of 
eye,  the  beautiful  color  and  form,   the  r^>:^%^'-^^^'^^^l^f^ 
pUortioned  limb,  making  one   «y™-«t"f  *°™  °*  "/'^^'j; 
strength  and  speed  no  other  dogs  possessed  this  side  of  their 
Sand,  giving  them  a  distinction  f--/!!  °'^- ^^t' 
readily  perceived;  and  their  voices,  whose  rude  throats    he  im^ 
mortal  Jove's  dread  clamor  counterfeited,   are  o*   ™"*^ 
strains  of  omniferous  music,   softly  mellowing   into   intrmsic 
sweetness,  rival  the  wildest  Utopian  dreams  ttat  ever  gathered 
around  the  brow  of  that  old  inspired  bard  and  s-e    -nger  o, 
Israel  as  he  walked  the  amaranthine  promenades  of  the  Garden 
of  Eden,  and  listened  to  the  sweet  Philomela  aaid  swift-wmged 
warbler  as  they  flitted  and  caroled  f-m  twig  to  t-S  y'"  «J^^ 
rested  beneath  the  shades  and  golden  forbidden  fruit    a^^^ung 
so  temptingly  in  tlie  silvery  boughs  and  silk  frmged  foliage  of 
ttie  Zposel  tree   of   life.    Fury    with    Tickler,    Bird,    Jake, 
Gamester    Stag,  Lick,   Boston,   John,    Eed   Buck,    Ringwood, 
w'ndr  Mary,  Foot  and  MoUie  and  all  of  their  ancestors  run  far 
^k  to  the  p;ck  of  old  righteous  Sampson    who  -ugh*  foxe 
and  tied  firebrands  to  their  tails,  to  scourge  his  e^emie     and  tt  e 
father  and  mother  of  his  dogs  were  Esau's  two  fai  hful  old 
hounds?  Pinebender   and   Sprinkler,    of    far-fet.hed    h,st«,.cal 
fame,  who  followed  him  from  his  hunting  grounds  vvhen  he  sold 
his  birthright  to  Jacob  for  a  mess  of  pottage  for  himse      and 
hungry  dogs,  and  the  progenitors  of  his  pack  were  the  first  i»ir 
of  dog's  that'ever  m.de  foot-prints  in  the  damp  soil    or  cr^ed  a 
trail  upon  the  unsunlit  and  unvineclad  summit  of  Mt.  Ararat, 
wTien  Noah's  second  dove  took  her  long  and  lonely  departu    . 
and  bruited  back  in  enunciative  strains  of  sonorous  mu  ic    he 
signal  to  Noah  to  unfetter  his  hounds,  that  the  miirky  deep  had 
assuaged  and  unveiled  the  gr«nd  terraquous  globe  from  center  to 

"  B:;t:  F:ry  and  many  of  her  noble  family  are  lying  where 
thrtall  blue-gmss  of  Montgomery,  like  J-^^^'s  sheaves  to 
Joseph's,  bow  in  honor  to  their  memory.    May  your  puppies 

prove  worthy  of  their  ancestors.  .,  ■     j   «  a  Vr7vTi 

Very  respectfully,  your  friend,  S.  S.  1  izer, 
Sec'y  Sterling  Hunting  Club. 


50  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

THE  WALKER  STRAIN. 
By  A.  C.  Heffenger,  M.  D. 

Since  the  advent  of  high  class  foxhounds  in  New  England, 
fox-hunters  are  continually  asking  of  what  blood  these  pro- 
gressive hounds  are  constituted,  and  how  they  came  by  their 
magnificent  quality,  so  that  a  few  words  of  explanation  anent 
this  strain  may  be  acceptable  to  the  hunting  readers  of  your 
book.  Mr.  Walker,  senior,  the  father  of  the  now  celebrated 
Walker  brothers,  and  Gen.  Wash  Maupin,  were  brought  up  and 
lived  very  near  each  other  in  Kentucky.  The  home  of  Gen. 
Maupin  was  in  Madison  county,  the  most  noted  hound  county 
in  Kentucky.  Mr.  Walker,  senior,  and  Gen.  Maupin  began 
hunting  together  with  the  same  hounds  when  quite  young  men. 
They  were  genuine  hunters,  loved  their  hounds,  took  great  pains 
in  breeding  them,  and  had  the  best  to  be  got.  This  was  in  the 
time  of  the  gray  fox,  about  1813,  or  ninety-two  years  ago.  They 
also  hunted  deer,  not  with  a  shot-gun,  but  in  true  sportsmanlike 
form,  allowing  their  hounds  to  do  the  killing.  They  hunted 
harder,  or  gave  their  hounds  more  continuous  work,  than  any 
other  hunters  of  their  time. 

When  the  red  fox  made  his  appearance,  they  soon  found  that 
their  hounds  were  not  equal  to  the  task  of  successfully  coping 
with  him,  and  set  about  to  get  the  necessary  hound  qualities, 
demanded  to  run  do^\^l  and  kill  the  fleet,  tricky,  enduring 
newcomer. 

The  first  out-cross  that  was  made,  was  to  a  small  black  and 
tan  hound  called  Tennessee  Lead,  upon  the  best  bitches  of  the 
combined  packs.  This  cross  is  said  to  have  greatly  improved  the 
striking,  casting  and  speed  of  the  strain.  The  pedigree  of 
Tennessee  Lead  is  unknown,  which  is  a  great  pity,  for  he  was  a 
phenomenal  hound.  He  was  found  running  a  deer  on  the 
Cumberland  mountains,  Tenn.,  by  a  man  returning  from  the 
South,  who  took  him  to  Kentucky  and  gave  him  to  Gen. 
Maupin. 

A  short  time  after  this,  in  or  about  1853,  they  imported  a 
couple  of  English  foxliounds,  dog  and  bitch.  The  bitch  was  im- 
ported in  whelp,  and  gave  birth  to  five  pups  (four  dogs  and  a 
bitch)  after  reaching  Kentucky.  This  English  blood  was  not 
only  crossed  upon  the  other  dogs,  but  inbred  upon  itself,  with 
wonderfully  good  results . 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  51 

After  the  deaths  of  the  senior  Mr.  Walker  and  Gen.  Maupin, 
these  hounds  were  bred  by  Mr.  Walker's  sons,  Mr.  W.  S. 
Walker  and  Mr.  E.  H.  Walker,  and  these  gentlemen  have 
striven  to  keep  the  stock  up  to  high  vrater  mark,  and  with  great 
success.  While  maintaining  every  good  quality  essential  to  a 
high  class  red  fox  hound,  they  have  bred  especially  to  gameness, 
grit  and  everlasting  endurance.  A  quitter  is  almost  unknown  to 
them,  but,  should  one  turn  up,  he  never  lives  to  perpetuate  his 
sin.  These  hounds  are  of  all  markings,  black  and  tan,  black, 
white  and  tan,  red  and  the  various  pies.  This  is  the  result  of 
breeding  to  the  best  hounds  without  regard  to  marking. 

About  fourteen  years  ago  the  Walkers  imported  Striver  and 
two  bitches  from  the  Duke  of  Eglinton's  pack  in  Scotland, 
(these  were  English  dogs  though  coming  from  Scotland),  and 
crossed  them  upon  the  Walker  hound,  producing  the  noted  Big 
Strive,  Pearl  Strive,  and  many  other  splendid  hounds.  They  are 
now  breeding  back  to  the  old  blood  again,  finding  they  had  too 
much  English  blood  for  first-class  nose  and  tongue.  The  famous 
winnings  of  E.  H.  W^alker's  Ailsie  at  the  Brunswick  Foxliound 
Club's  trials  in  1903,  proved  the  present  breeding  of  the  strain  to 
be  equal  to  anything  ever  produced  by  the  famous  fox-hunting 
family. 


THE  WHITLOCK  STRAIN. 

The  "Whitlock  Shaggy  Foxhounds"  were  brought  to  Kentucky 
from  Maryland  by  Mr.  Ben  Robertson  of  Mt.  Sterling,  Ky.  Mr. 
Robertson  was  a  horse  dealer,  and  each  year  brought  and  drove 
a  lot  of  horses  through  Maryland  to  Baltimore.  On  the  road  he 
would  stop  at  the  home  of  a  gentleman  who  owned  a  large  pack 
of  foxliounds,  that  he  considered  better  than  his  dogs  at  home  in 
Kentucky,  and  on  each  trip  would  bring  fresh  blood  for  his 
pack.  His  friend's  dogs  were  kept  in  a  large  lot  with  boards  set 
perpendicular,  ten  feet  high,  and  there  was  only  one  dog  out  of  a 
large  number  in  this  kennel  that  ever  got  out  over  the  top  of  this 
fence,  and  caught  the  fox  that  a  pack  of  his  neighbor's  dogs  were 
running.  He  had  published  in  one  of  the  Maryland  papers  a 
challenge  offering  to  wager  five  hundred  dollars  that  this  dog 
could  catch  or  hole  any  red  fox  in  Maryland  in  one  hour,  or  beat 
any  dog  in  Maryland,  for  the  same  amount.  There  were  no 
takers.    Mr.  Robertson  brought  a  son  of  the  above  dog  home  and 


52  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

named  him.  Eagle.  Although  he  (Eagle)  had  a  broken  leg  (done 
when  quite  young)  he  was  faster  than  any  of  Mr.  Robertson's 
dogs. 

In  1868  I  was  invited  to  join  a  party  going  to  the  mountains  in 
Kentucky  to  hunt  deer  and  foxes.  After  the  hunt  I  stopped  with 
Col.  Pat  Cork,  who  kept  the  Robertson  dogs,  and  he  gave  me  a 
red  bitch  named  Patti,  by  Eagle,  out  of  one  of  his  best  bitches. 
One  year  previous  to  this  Col.  Cork  sent  me  an  old  bitch  by 
Robertson's  Tickler,  with  four  puppies  by  Stag,  son  of  one  of 
Robertson's  former  importations.  One  of  the  puppies  was  red, 
like  his  sire,  and  I  named  him  Stag  Jr.  I  bred  Patti  to  Stag  Jr., 
and  from  this  mating  got  Gamester,  Pool,  Dean,  and  Stella.  The 
two  latter  I  gave  to  Mr.  Given  of  Indiana,  near  Sparta.  He  told 
me  they  were  the  champions  of  his  part  of  the  state.  Gamester, 
the  first  named  Stag  and  Patti  puppy,  was  the  best  fox  dog  I  ever 
raised  or  saw.  He  ran  at  the  head  of  my  pack,  and  I  never  saw 
him  fail  to  catch  a  fox  he  got  sight  of.  Gamester  was  a  very 
prepotent  dog.  Every  bitch  he  was  bred  to  produced  runners.  I 
bred  these  dogs  for  eighteen  years  with  only  one  out-cross.  That 
was  the  dog  Wild  Irishman.  I  got  him  from  Col.  Bob  Stoner, 
and  he  was  related  to  Robertson's  dogs.  E.  H.  Howard. 


In  1879  Mr.  Howard  was  presented  with  another  pair  of 
puppies  from  Gen.  Dick  Williams  that  he  claimed  were  superior 
to  the  red  ones.  They  were  also  of  the  Robertson  family  of  dogs 
and  came  from  Maryland.  The  bitch  I  lost  by  distemper.  The 
dog  I  saved  and  named  him  Dick  Williams.  Dick  was  out  of 
Blanch,  by  Robbin,  he  was  out  of  Fury,  by  Whitey,  a  Maryland 
dog. 

I  then  bred  Patti  Whitlock  (a  red  bitch  by  Gamester)  to  Dick. 
By  this  mating  I  got  Clara  I,  the  greatest  dog  I  ever  raised  or 
owned.  She  lived  to  be  seven  years  old,  and  no  man  that  knew 
her  questioned  her  ability  to  go  to  the  front  in  any  company, 
carry  the  track,  and  stay  there.  From  her  I  got  Clara  II,  who 
had  probably  a  greater  reputation  from  the  fact  that  she  was  a 
bench  winner.  She  was  the  winner  of  a  good  many  first  prizes. 
At  Lexington,  Ky.,  at  the  the  largest  show  of  foxhounds  ever 
held  in  the  U.  S.,  she  won  first  in  class,  first  as  a  brace  with  The 
Bard,  and  first  for  the  best  bitch  in  the  show.  Upon  the  advice 
of  Col.  Howard  I  bred  Clara  II  to  her  litter  brother  and  got 
Pansy.     She  was  game  but  not  fast.    From  her  I  got  two  litters, 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  53 

and  as  a  whole,  she  throwed  me  the  best  pups  I  ever  owned,  all 
being  speedy  and  game.  From  Pansy  I  got  Ida  Pickwick,  who 
won  the  Chattanooga  field  trial  when  she  was  past  eight  years 
old,  with  Flag,  a  full  sister  two  years  younger,  a  good  second. 

One  of  the  first  trials  of  foxliounds  was  at  West  Point,  Miss.  I 
entered  two  dogs  and  sent  them  to  Maj.  Yal  Young  of  Waverly, 
Miss.  They  barred  my  dogs  on  the  grounds  that  I  was  not  a 
member.  We  had  a  controversy  through  the  American  Field, 
and  I  produced  a  receipt  for  my  initiation,  and  being  in  good 
standing  certainly  was  a  member.  Mr.  Lewis  and  Mr.  Avent 
were  the  winners  that  year.  The  committee  then  ordered  that  I 
should  have  satisfaction  by  meeting  with  three  dogs  each  and 
running  a  race.  There  was  to  be  a  bench  show  in  the  near 
future  at  Cincinnati,  and  I  named  that  time  for  the  race.  Mr. 
Avent  answered  an  acceptance  with  a  provision  that  he  would 
not  go  so  far  to  run  unless  the  consideration  was  a  purse  of  |600. 
I  made  my  deposit  with  Mr.  J.  Shelly  Hudson  of  Covington, 
Ky.,  then  the  owner  of  the  Latonia  Kennels.  He  answered  Mr. 
Avent.  Mr.  Avent  was  at  the  show  with  his  setters,  but  left  his 
hounds  at  home. 

I  bred  a  granddaughter  of  Gamester  to  Rowdy,  a  Walker  dog, 
and  raised  three  puppies,  one  of  which  I  gave  to  Mr.  Walker. 
He  named  him  Rowdy,  and  he  won  the  field  trials  at  Cynthiana, 
Ky.  He  was  entered  as  Mr.  Walker's  breeding,  but  he  was  from 
my  bitch  and  I  bred  him  all  the  same. 

I  ran  a  pack  of  dogs  £rom  Campbell  county,  Ky.,  in  the  days 
of  Clara  II  that  came  to  my  house  on  a  steamer,  and  w^e  went  to 
Fort  Hill,  Ohio,  and  easily  defeated  them.  They  laid  no  claim 
to  any  part  of  it.     My  white  bitch  Claud  caught  the  fox  on  the 

ground. 

I  ran  a  match  race  with  a  Mr.  Bristow  of  Kenton  county,  Ky., 
with  my  bitch  Clara  I  and  her  half  sister.  We  were  to  run  two 
dogs  each.  He  ran  a  bitch  called  May,  tnat  was  bred  at  or  near 
Lexington,  Ky.,  and  claimed  that  she  had  never  been  beaten. 
They  holed  the  fox  in  less  than  two  hours,  and  his  dogs  never 
carried  a  point  in  the  race.  r^  i  -n  tt 

The  first  part  of  this  article  is  by  my  worthy  friend.  Col.  E.  H. 
Howard,  whom  I  hunted  with  from  my  early  boyhood  up  to  the 
time  when  he  gave  me  his  dogs  and  practically  retired  from  the 
field.  While  his  silvery  hair  tells  that  he  has  passed  many 
frosty  mornings,  he  sits  on  his  horse  erect  and  can  make  many 


54  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

of  the  boys  sit  sideways  returning  from  the  chase,  Mr,  Howard 
has  always  been  a  lover  of  fine  stock  and  devoted  much  time  to 
the  breeding  of  same,  and  has  always  been  my  counsel  in 
breeding  my  dogs.  He  has  always  been  a  thorough  hunter  and  a 
gentleman  of  the  first  water,  I  wish  you  could  know  him  as  I 
do. 

My  dogs  were  named  tlie  Shaggies  by  Mr.  Robertson  before  I 
got  them.  They  were  very  rough  coated  and  could  take  to  ice 
or  briars  without  harm  to  themselves, 

I  think  we  have  always  improved  our  hounds  by  judicious 
breeding, 

I  am  now  on  the  shady  side  of  the  bush,  and  will  soon  have  to 
retire  and  make  room  for  those  that  love  to  ride  to  the  hounds 
and  see  the  finish.  A,  B,  Whitlock. 


THE  ARKANSAS  TRAVELLER  STRAIN. 
By  C.  Floyd  Huff,  Hot  Springs,  Ark. 

The  Arkansas  Traveller  hounds  were  given  that  name  by  my 
hunting  friends  and  companions.  I  have  had  them  for  a  number 
of  years  and  liave  been  hunted  and  bred  by  me  for  my  personal 
pleasure.  They  are  the  result  of  such  intelligence  as  I  possess  in 
this  line  of  crossing  the  thoroughbred  English,  the  best  Ken- 
tucky blood,  as  evidenced  by  field  trial  tests,  with  a  strain  of 
hounds  that  have  been  bred  pure  in  Missouri  since  the  Civil 
War,  but  whose  ancestry  cannot  be  traced  beyond  that  period, 
Tlie  predominating  blood  of  the  Arkansas  Travellers  is  from  this 
Missouri  strain, 

Tlie  Missouri  dogs  referred  to  have  no  name  as  a  breed.  They 
were  simply  bred  and  hunted  in  the  family  for  the  personal 
pleasure  of  their  owners. 

They  are  small,  racily  built,  rather  long  haired,  shaggy,  short 
eared  black  and  tans.  They  are  very  speedy,  are  fast  and  wide 
scouts,  work  a  trail  rapidly  and  only  cry  it  here  and  there.  They 
are  not  mouthy  on  trail,  but  give  sufficient  tongue  to  pack. 
Tliey  are  dead  game  and  will  run  a  fox  under  any  conditions  or 
circumstances  better  than  any  strain  of  hounds  I  have  ever 
hunted.  As  a  rule  they  have  a  sharp,  screaming  cry,  both  on 
trail  and  when  running.  When  running  they  tongue  freely  and 
very  fast,  and  with  a  viciousness  that  suggests  interest.     They 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  55 

are  successful  red  fox  hounds,  but  run  too  wide  and  fast  for 
grays.  As  a  pack  they  are  not  successful  gray  fox  hounds.  They 
will  run  over  too  far,  and  as  they  cast  forward  on  a  run-over  or 
loss,  instead  of  backward,  they  run  a  gray  ordinarily  about  like 
a  rabbit  that  dodges  and  tacks.  This  one  quality  of  casting  wide 
and  ahead,  in  my  opinion,  is  one  of  the  qualities  so  necessary  to 
catch  a  red  fox,  and  I  have  known  them  time  and  again  to  pull 
away  from  a  pack  of  otherwise  good  hounds,  who  would  go  back 
to  pick  up  a  loss  and  never  catch  up  again.  I  have  often  heard 
the  owners  of  such  hounds  express  wonder  and  chagrin  at  their 
liounds  being  seemingly  thrown  out  on  a  loss. 

This  strain  of  hounds  for  years  have  successfully  run  the  red 
fox.  To  prevent  inbreeding  to  an  injurious  extent,  and  to  inject 
new  blood,  I  imported  a  pair  of  English  hounds.  By  experi- 
menting I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a  proper  amount  of 
English  blood  somewhat  improved  the  size,  and  perhaps  the 
stamina  or  bottom  of  them.  It  required  time  and  patience  to 
determine  just  where  to  stop  the  cross.  Mr.  Norvin  T.  Harris  of 
Lyndon,  Ky.,  in  1901,  presented  me  with  a  bitch  sired  by 
Champion  Big  Strive  (one-half  English)  out  of  Lygia,  she  by 
Jay  Bird,  out  of  an  English-July  bitch,  La  Tosca.  Big  Strive, 
Lygia,  Jay  Bird  and  La  Tosca  were  all  field  trial  winners  at 
National  Foxliunters'  Association  meets,  and  some  of  them  at 
trials  in  Massachusetts  of  the  Brunswick  Foxhound  Club.  This 
bitch  proved  to  be  exceptionally  fast  and  thoroughly  game,  a 
beautifully  built  hound,  fine  style  and  carriage,  and  altogether  a 
hound  of  the  first  class.  Her  greatest  faults  w^ere  timidity,  and 
feet  that  got  sore  from  hard  running.  Both  these  qualities 
seemed  to  be  lost  in  her  progeny  by  increasing  the  English 
blood.  The  English  have  strong  constitutions  and  are  ravenous 
feeders.  By  transmitting  these  qualities  to  progeny  of  timid 
bitches,  and  those  lacking  in  strong  constitutions,  I  found  I 
overcame  these  objectionable  traits.  By  experimenting  in  this 
way  for  years,  I  convinced  myself  that  I  had  improved  the 
original  strain  and  got  about  what  I  thought  to  be  the  best. 
The  qualities,  traits,  and  individuality,  and  also  the  color  of  the 
original  hounds,  have  been  largely  preserved. 

These  are  the  Arkansas  Travellers  of  to-day,  and  are  mostly 
the  original  color  of  black  and  tan,  occasionally  there  will  come 
white,  black  and  tan  puppies,  and  now  and  then  a  red  one. 
They  have  been  hunted  in  Texas,  Louisiana,  Kentucky,  Missouri, 


56  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

Mississippi,  Massachusetts,  New  York,  and  all  over  Arkansas, 
and  both  their  appearance  and  performance  have  challenged  the 
admiration  of  hunters  wherever  they  have  been. 

They  take  to  hunting  foxes  as  a  bird  dog  does  to  birds.  They 
train  themselves  if  given  an  opportunity.  They  are  in  evidence 
in  any  hunt,  and  in  camp  hunts  I  have  hunted  them  night  and 
day  for  a  week,  and  they  are  always  willing  to  go  and  stay. 


THE  COOK  STRAIN. 
By  A.  C.  Heffenger,  M.  D. 

This  strain  of  American  foxhounds,  so  much  in  vogue  in  all 
parts  of  the  United  States  fifteen  years  ago,  has  almost  entirely 
disappeared,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  any  of  the  pure  blood  exist 
to-day.  Their  originator,  the  late  Mr.  H.  E.  Cook  of  Detroit, 
Michigan,  began  the  development  of  the  strain  in  1866  or  '67, 
and  his  idea  was  to  produce  a  foxhound  with  the  cold  nose  and 
correct  hound  head  of  the  native  type,  with  the  clean  neck  and 
shoulders,  and  general  physical  excellence  of  the  English  fox- 
hound trimmed  into  racing  form.  That  he  succeeded  in 
breeding  some  of  the  most  beautiful  and  racily  formed  fox- 
hounds ever  seen  in  this  country,  no  good  hound  judge  who  saw 
them  can  deny.  They  had  plenty  of  bone  and  muscle  too,  and 
their  heads  were  models  of  hound  character,  but  where  Mr. 
Cook  failed  was  in  obtaining  sufficient  coat  and  leather,  and  to 
these  short-comings  may  be  attributed  the  passing  of  the  strain. 
It  is  impossible  to  determine  where  Mr.  Cook  obtained  the  origi- 
nal specimens  from  which  he  made  his  crosses  leading  up  to  his 
distinctive  type,  but  from  their  heads  and  smooth  coats  it  would 
seem  that  they  came  from  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  and  northern 
Ohio.  These  Cook  foxliounds  showed  in  head,  coat  and  stern, 
what  the  up-to-date  hound  man  would  call  pot-licker  blood,  or 
in  other  words  total  absence  of  tlie  blood  of  the  modern  English 
foxhound.  They  were  both  bench  and  field  trial  winners,  but 
their  success  was  most  marked  in  the  bench  shows  of  the  United 
States,  and  I  think,  in  Canada  also. 

In  fact  these  foxliounds  swept  everything  before  them  in  the 
bench  shows  of  the  country  until  the  Kentucky  breeders  began 
showing  their  type,  with  the  modern  English  cross  in  it.  These 
Kentucky  hounds,  as  best  represented  by  Big  Strive  and  Pearl 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  57 

Strive,  outpointed  the  Cook  liounds  in  every  way  save  head  and 
by  co;tinuous  winning  soon  ran  them  off  the  crcmt.  Pearl 
sirive  was  the  cleanest  and  raciest  foxhound  I  have  ever  seen, 
though  ha«  English.  Next  to  her,  the  Cook  ^td.,  Modest  G.^^ 
filled  my  eye.  Modest  Girl  liad  the  better  head,  but  Pearl  Strive 
scored  over  her  generally  in  body,  legs  and  feet. 
TspL  of  having  been  displaced  upon  the  bench,  however,  i 
Mr.  Cook's  hounds  had  been  able  to  stand  the  P™'*-;"'  °* 
hard  running  under  rough  conditions,  which  he  claimed  hey 
co^wl,  they  would  have  been  just  as  popular  with  practical 
fox-hunters  to-day  as  they  were  fifteen  years  ago^ 

Many  specimens  came  to  New  England,  and  most  of  «>em 
were  large  and  showy  in  appearance,  dog  hounds  bemg  f.om 
Twenty-three  to  twenty-six  inches,  and  bitches  from  twenty  to 
twenty-three  inches.    Most  of  them  were  conventional  black 
white  and  tans,  though  some  were  black  and  tan,  -^  afew  b  - 
mottled,  black  and  tan.     The  three  most  notable  representatives 
Tthe  strain  seen  at  the  field  trials  of  the  Brunswick  Fo^iound 
riuh  were  A  M  Gerry's  Drive,  A.  McDonald's  Queen,  and  E. 
TolIeT's  Modest  Girl.     Drive  won  more  in  ^eld  trials.  Queen 
was  probably  the  best  all-round  worker,  and  Modest  Grl  was 
the  best  show  hound.    Queen  was  bred  to  the  celebrated  Joe 
Forester,  and  it  happened  that  a  couple  of  years  af^rward^  at 
the  show  of  the  New  England  Kennel  Club,  Boston,  Mass^,  1890, 
Joe  Forester  won  first  in  open  dogs.  Modest  Girl  m  open  bitches^ 
and  Flora  Temple  and  MoUie  T.,   (Joe  Forester-Queen)  won 
Lcond  and  third  to  Modest  Girl.     After  this  M-  «ook  was  very 
anxious  to  see  Joe  Forester,  and  breed  to  him,  but  .11  health  and 
dLh  put  an  end  to  his  ambitions.    Had  he  lived  to  -ke  pro^x 
crosses  on  Joe  Forester,  a  foxhound  of  great  substance  and  ever 
asting  speed  and  endurance,  his  strain  would  '-ve  obtained  jut 
the  points  needed,  and  would  have  held  its  popularity  to-^y  the 
same  as  in  the  eighties.    As  previously  mentioned  I  considered 
Sodest  Girl  the  best  physical  specimen  of  the  strain     ever  saw 
Symmetrical,  strong,  clean  and  racy  from  head  to  ^tern   witii 
the  richest  black,  white  and  tan  markings,  f'^^/J  ^""f.'f 
beauty,  fair  to  look  upon,  and  the  ''^t»-l  "^f  *° /°?^f  ^^f i 
an  equally  handsome  hound,  my  property  at  that  time    and 
haveTways  regretted  that  I  did  not  buy  the  "Girl"  and  make 

*' Mroook's  favorites  were  Champion  Brave  and   Whoopey. 


58  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

One  was  black,  white  and  tan,  and  the  other  black  and  tan. 
They  were  nearly  twenty-six  inches  and  racily  built.  Brave  was 
the  greatest  bench  show  winner  of  the  strain,  while  Mr.  Cook 
considered  Whoopey  the  best  all-round  worker.  In  a  letter  to  a 
New  England  fox-hunter  he  states  that  he  sent  Wlioopey  to  a 
friend  in  Texas,  who  was  to  hunt  him  on  wolves,  and  against  all 
the  noted  foxhounds  in  the  state  at  the  time.  The  Texas  fox- 
hounds represented  all  the  leading  strains  in  the  country,  and 
there  were  thirty -five  of  them,  all  experienced  hunters  on 
wolves,  while  Whoopey  had  never  seen  one.  He  emphatically 
says  in  this  letter  that  "Whoopey  took  the  lead  and  widened  the 
space  between  himself  and  the  other  hounds  more  and  more,  as 
the  chase  progressed,  until  he  finally  overhauled  and  killed  the 
wolf  before  the  second  dog  was  up."  He  further  says  that  after 
this  Whoopey  made  the  circuit  of  the  state  and  "came  back 
with  a  clean  record  and  without  a  single  defeat." 

This  seems  remarkable  to  those  who  know  what  kind  of 
hounds  the  Texans  have.  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that 
the  accounts  were  wi'itten  to  Mr.  Cook  by  enthusiastic  friends, 
and  lie  merely  reiterates  their  statements.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  but  that  Whoopey  was  a  remarkable  all-round  hound,  and 
it  is  greatly  to  Mr.  Cook's  credit  that  he  should  have  bred  him. 
I  hunted  many  times  with  Drive,  Queen  and  Modest  Girl. 
Drive  was  an  excellent  hunter  and  starter,  and  when  the  fox  was 
up,  drove  fast  and  clean  for  several  hours,  after  which  his  lack 
of  endurance  became  evident  and  the  slower,  but  tougher,  New 
England  hounds  then  caught  up  to  and  held  him.  His  voice  was 
magnificent,  and  rang  out  in  such  clarion  tones  as  one  seldom 
hears  in  these  days.  Queen  was  a  nice  all-round  bitch,  not  as 
fast  as  Drive,  but  with  more  leather  and  endurance,  and  stood 
up  well  under  a  six  or  eight  hour's  hard  run.  Modest  Girl  left 
New  England  before  she  was  well  trained  and  developed  in  the 
hunting  field ,  her  excellent  conformation  making  it  more  profit- 
able to  send  her  on  the  bench  show  circuit. 

Besides  Champion  Brave  and  Modest  Girl,  there  were  many 
other  noted  bench  show  winners  in  this  strain,  notably  among 
which  were  Champion  Roderick  and  Champion  Spotty.  It  is  a 
pity,  and  a  distinct  distinct  loss  to  the  foxhound  family,  that 
this  good  strain  should  have  practically  disappeared.  Mr.  A. 
McDonald,  of  Rockland,  Me.,  previously  mentioned,  in  the  de- 
scendants of  Queen,   still  has  some  of  the  Cook  blood  in  his 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  59 

kennels,  but  numerous  out-crosses  have  greatly  diluted  it,  and 
ere  long  its  percentage  will  be  inappreciable. 


THE  AVENT  STRAIN. 
By  A.  C.  Heffenger,  M.  D. 

This  strain  of  American  foxhounds  owned  and  bred  originally 
by  Mr.  J.  M.  Avent,  Hickory  Valley,  Tenn.,  came  into  national 
prominence  in  the  latter  eighties,  and  their  memorable  contest 
with  the  Wild  Goose  hounds  in  the  field  trials  of  the  Inter-State 
Fox-hunters'  Club,  Waverly,  Miss.,  Dec.  2,  1889,  stamped  them 
as  among  the  best  in  the  country.  In  these  trials  the  puppy 
stake  went  to  Wild  Goose  Pack's  Mounter,  with  Avent  Pack's 
Flora  a  close  second.  In  the  all -age  stake  first  in  speed  went  to 
Avent  Pack's  Rock,  with  Wild  Goose  Pack's  Callie  Gates  a  close 
second.  In  hunting  and  trailing  the  Avent  hounds  were  not 
placed.  In  the  pack  stake  Wild  Goose  took  first,  with  Avent's 
second,  and  Willis'  third.  Tliis  fine  showing  made  fox-liunters 
all  over  the  country  seek  the  Avent  blood,  and  some  of  it  came 
to  New  England  through  Mr,  R.  D.  Perry  of  Massachusetts,  and 
will  be  mentioned  later. 

The  origin  of  these  hounds  is  not  as  clear  as  in  the  case  of 
some  of  the  American  strains,  but  like  most  of  them  traces  back 
fundamentally  to  the  old  Virginia  black  and  tan.  They  were 
known  in  Tennessee  as  the  Ferguson  hound  and  were  crossed 
with  the  Bacheler.  They  were  then  inbred  to  a  great  degree, 
and  to  this  may  possibly  be  attributed  the  gradual  loss  of  type 
and  public  favor.  It  is  said  that  few  of  the  original  blood  are 
left,  and  a  gentleman  who  hunts  with  them  each  year  has 
recently  told  me  that  the  type  of  the  present  pack  was  much  like 
that  of  some  of  mine  of  pure  Kentucky  breeding.  In  1890  I  saw, 
hunted  with,  and  carefully  examined  three  young  Avent  hounds 
owned  by  Mr.  R.  D.  Perry,  and  said  to  be  of  the  original,  correct 
type  of  the  strain.  They  were  trim,  lightly  built,  springy  black 
and  tans,  a  dog  and  two  bitches.  The  latter  failed  to  make  good, 
and  Mr.  Perry  discarded  them.  The  dog,  however,  named 
Clinker,  proved  a  wonderful  youngster  and  deserves  a  special 
description.  He  was  about  twenty-three  inches  at  shoulder, 
racily  and  strongly  built,  clean  head  and  neck,  nice  shoulder, 
good  chest,  strong  in  loin  and  quarters,  legs  and  feet  of  the  best 


60  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

of  Americau  kind,  and  with  a  docked  trigger  stem.  He  was 
very  black  all  all  over  except  lower  part  of  legs  and  feet  which 
were  rich  tan,  and  tan  spots  over  eyes.  His  coat  was  short,  but 
strong  and  covered  well.  His  action  was  quick,  springy,  and 
showed  power  and  litheness.  He  was  a  wide,  galloping  hunter, 
fast  trailer,  swinging  in  circles  at  a  loss  the  same  as  in  driving, 
but  it  was  in  driving  a  hot  scent  that  he  was  seen  at  his  best. 
Here  he  had  no  equal  at  the  time  he  ran  in  the  field  trials  of  the 
Brunswick  Foxhound  Club.  At  the  second  annual  trials  of  this 
club.  Great  Island,  Me.,  1890,  he  won  first  in  speed  and  driving 
in  the  all-age  stake,  though  only  a  puppy.  At  the  third  annual 
trials,  Princeton,  Mass.,  1891,  where  I  was  chairman  of  judges, 
he  won  highest  general  average  in  the  all -age  stake.  During 
these  trials  when  one  one  of  the  hottest  hunts  was  on,  some  one 
shot  at  and  slightly  wounded  the  fox,  then  about  two  hundred 
yards  ahead  of  Clinker,  who  was  leading  the  pack  by  at  least  an 
eighth  of  a  mile.  I  happened  to  be  near  where  the  shot  was 
fired,  and  i-an  to  the  place  to  find  Clinker  baying  the  fox,  which 
was  backed  against  a  tree.  When  I  came  up  the  fox  started  to 
run  and  Clinker  caught  and  killed  him  before  any  other  hound 
came  up.  This  fine  hound  was  bred  to  many  New  England 
bitches  but  the  crosses  failed  to  produce  notable  progeny. 

The  fame  of  these  hounds  induced  many  notable  sportsmen  to 
visit  them,  and  that  premier  sportsman  of  America,  Mr.  Thomas 
Hitchcock,  Jr.,  bought  a  half  interest  in  them  and  removed 
them  for  some  years  during  the  hunting  season  to  Aiken,  S.  C, 
where  they  gave  admirable  sport  for  years.  Mr.  Hitchcock 
finally  drew  out  of  the  partnership,  and  started  the  Aiken 
Hounds,  his  individual  pack.  The  pack  is  now  owned  I  am  told 
by  Mr.  H.  B.  Duryea  and  Mr.  J.  M.  Avent,  and  is  kept  at 
Hickory  Valley,  Tennessee,  where  many  of  America's  best 
hunting  men  ride  to  them  in  season. 


THE  WILD  GOOSE  STRAIN. 

By  A.  C.  Heffenger,  M.  D. 

One  of  the  most  popular  strains  of  foxliounds  which  America 
has  evolved  is  that  known  now  as  the  Wild  Goose.  Though  ex- 
isting for  many  years  in  Tennessee  and  the  South,  the  first  speci- 
mens found  their  way  into  New  England  in  the  eighties,  and 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  61 

gained  well  merited  fame  in  the  field  trials  of  the  Brunswick 
Foxlionnd  Club.     Two  well  known   hunters  of  Massachusetts, 
Mr    R    D    Perry  and  Mr.  E.  J.  Bates,   purchased  two  slightly 
different  types  of  the  strain.     Mr.  Perry's  couple  were  black 
white  and  tan,  and  out  of  Callie  Gates,  the  most  famous  bitch  of 
the  strain,  and  winner  of  first  honors  in  the  Inter-State  Fox- 
liunters'  Club  trials  at  Waverly,   Miss.,  Dec.    2,    1889.     These 
hounds  were  mcily  built,  handsome  and  catchy  m  appearance, 
and  proved  fast,  wide  hunters  and  drivers.     They  were  rather 
light  in  bone  and  coat  for  our  our  climate,  and  wmter  huntmg 
was  very  punishing  to  them.     Mr.  Bates  had  a  couple  of  red 
hounds,  larger  and  coarser  than  Mr.  Perry,  and  one,  "Leads 
All,"    proved    himself    a    first-class    working    hound   for    any 
climate.     They  all  had  good  noses,   and  musical  tongue,  and 
crossed  on  the  New  England  foxliound,  slower  and  tougher,  pro- 
duced splendid  stock  for  any  country.     I  crossed  Joe  Forester, 
first  winner  of  the  American  Field  Cup  in  the  B.  F.  C.  trials,  on 
Annie  Dance,  a  Callie  Gates  bitch,  and  every  one  of  the  progeny 
proved  first-class  foxliounds;  one.  Resolution,  is  the  best  hound 
I  own,  and  the  best  I  ever  saw  save  his  sire  Joe  Forester. 

The  origin  of  the  strain  I  can  best  give  by  quoting  from  a 
letter  written  me  by  Col.  J.  W.  Lewis,  Paris,  Tennessee,  the 
present  owner  of  the  pack.     "The  original  dogs  were  brought 
from  Virginia  by  my  father,  in  1835;  he  called  them  the  "briar- 
patch"  dog.     They  were  white,  black  and  tan,  and  blue  speckled 
in  color.    Father  was  a  man  of  affairs  in  those  days,  and  a  great 
sportsman  that  wanted  tlie  best.     He  met  here,  as  he  told  me, 
other  men  of  the  same  ambition.     Soon  quite  a  rivalry  sprung 
up  between  them,  when  each  began  to  buy  and  improve  his 
dogs      Mr.   John  Fuqua,   a  negro   speculator,    imported    from 
England  some  time  in  the  fifties,  an  English  dog  that  was  crossed 
on  father's  best  bitch.    A  few  years  later,  the  same  man,  Fuqua, 
got  another  dog  from  Georgia,  that  was  red  and  white  spotted. 
They  crossed  tliis  dog  in  with  the  other  cross.    Some  time  m  the 
sixties,  another  wealthy  man  and  speculator,  brought  a  white 
and  black  spotted  dog  from  Maryland,  and  crossed  him  on  the 
best  bitch  they  had.     This  was  the  first  of  my  recollection  of  the 
dogs  of  my  father.     Again  a  gentleman  traveling  through  this 
country  in  fine  style,  going  to  Reelfoot  Lake  on  a  hunt,  gave  me 
a  bitch  that  he  said  was  the  best  bred  foxhound   in   North 
Carolina,  and  we  bred  to  her.     I  then  took  charge  of  the  dogs 


62  THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND 

and  crossed  them  as  best  I  could,  breeding  upon  the  idea  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  have  since  that  time  made  several 
crosses  v^ith  the  English,  the  Kentucky  dog,  known  as  the 
Goodman,  and  with  an  Irish  hound,  that  was  bought  and  owned 
by  a  man  in  Madison  county.  Finally  Fleet  and  Raum  were 
produced,  from  whom  sprang  Callie  Gates,  the  greatest  fox- 
hound in  my  judgement  the  world  ever  knew,  together  with 
many  others  that  have  followed  down  through  my  kennel. 

My  dogs  are  all  black  and  white  with  tan  points,  they  hunt 
like  pointers,  run  for  blood,  have  cold,  quick  noses,  and  know  no 
quit.  I  have  hunted  all  the  various  strains  of  dogs,  and  have 
owned  them  from  nearly  every  important  kennel  in  the  U.  S., 
and  I  don't  believe  that  there  is  a  strain  of  dogs  living  that  are 
as  good  all-round  red  fox  dogs  as  the  Wild  Goose  strain. 

Now  as  to  their  name ;  when  I  owned  the  ancestors  of  Callie 
Gates,  I  had  a  pack  that  I  believed  could  catch  anything  that 
could  not  fly.  They  all  had  peculiar,  soft,  quick  notes.  One  day 
I  was  hunting  together  with  Col.  Robert  Gates,  and  had  been 
troubled,  and  discussed  with  him  a  name  for  my  pack.  We 
started  an  old  traveller,  as  I  suppose,  who  made  a  bee-line 
twenty  miles  away.  We  being  well  mounted,  and  having  some 
puppies  that  we  did  not  want  to  lose,  followed.  We  were  able 
to  follow  on  enquiring  from  house  to  house,  as  the  fox  ran  as  the 
crow  flies.  Finally  we  came  to  an  immense  swamp,  with  horses 
worn  out,  where  we  met  a  huntsman  with  a  long  rifle  sitting  be- 
hind a  big  tree,  as  if  watching  for  something.  I  enquired  of 
him  if  he  had  heard  our  dogs.  He  said,  'No,  but  there's  the 
damnedest  gang  of  wild  geese  flying  round  in  that  swamp  that 
I've  ever  heard,'  that  he  had  been  there  for  two  hours  trying  to 
get  a  shot  at  them,  and  asked  us  to  listen.  We  pulled  our  horses 
round,  and  could  hear  our  pack  in  full  cry,  when  the  stranger 
said,  'Those  are  the  wild  geese.'  We  hollowed  a  time  or  two, 
tlie  fox  left  the  swamp,  and  was  overtaken  in  a  few  minutes. 
We  got  to  the  dogs  and  found  one  of  the  largest  red  foxes  it  has 
ever  been  my  fortune  to  see.  Callie  Gates  and  her  brother, 
Stonewall  Jackson,  were  just  ten  months  old.  They  both  staid 
in  the  race  and  were  at  the  death.  On  our  way  home  Col.  Gates 
said,  'Lewis,  that  fellow  has  furnished  the  name  for  our  pack. 
Let's  call  it  the  Wild  Goose.' 

Now,  Doctor,  pardon  me  for  mentioning  some  of  the  peculiari- 
ties of  Callie  Gates.    From  that  day,  it  being  her  first  race,  she 


THE   AMERICAN  FOXHOUND  63 

never  gave  tongue  after  anytliing  when  was  on  a  horse  but  a  fox. 
I  never  saw  her  lie  down  in  the  woods  or  when  on  a  hunt.  I 
never  saw  her  carry  her  tail  down.  She  would  not  bark  at  a 
hole  or  work  at  one.  She  never  wanted  to  be  fondled.  She 
would  not  touch  a  fox  if  another  dog  caught  it.  If  she  caught 
one  herself,  and  another  dog  touclied  it,  she  would  loose  it  and 
walk  off  and  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  it.  She  would  not 
lie  on  the  ground,  but  would  get  on  a  plank  or  up  in  a  chair.  I 
have  often  seen  her  lying  on  a  big  rail  on  top  of  the  fence  like  a 
cat.  She  was  never  out  of  a  race,  and  never  failed  to  go  to  the 
hole  or  death.  She  would  never  give  tongue  unless  leading,  and 
would  never  eat  anything  thrown  lier  on  the  ground.  I  never 
expect  to  see  her  like  again." 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  letter  of  Col.  Lewis,  that 
the  Wild  Goose  strain  dates  back  about  fifty  years,  that  the  old 
Virginia  hound  was  the  foundation  blood,  upon  which  various 
crosses,  English,  Birdsong  from  Georgia,  Irish  or  July  from 
Maryland,  a  North  Carolina  strain,  probably  Byron,  and  finally 
Maupin-Robertson  or  Goodman  from  Kentucky,  were  made, 
producing  Fleet  and  Raum,  the  progenitors  of  Callie  Gates,  and 
the  present  type  of  the  strain. 


PART  IV. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


DR.  A.  C,  HEFFENGER'S  '"JOE  FORESTER." 

First  winner  American  Field  Cup,  Brunswick  Foxhound  Clubs  field  trials,  1889.  First 
prize  open  dogs.  New  England  Kennel  Club's  bench  show,  Boston,  Mass.,  1890.  The 
best  combined  field  and  bench  hound  ever  bred  in  New  England. 


ADMIRAL  JAMES  E.  JOUETT'S  "LOTTA." 


A  pure  Brooke   hound,   bred  and  presented    by   Mr.    John   C.  Bentley    to   Admlrai 
Jouett. 


MR.  O.  F.  JOSLIN'S  "RANGER." 

Winner  of  the  Derby  in  1901 ,  and  the  All  Age  stake  in    1902,    Brunswick   Foxhound 
'Club's  field  trials. 


MR.  O.  F.  JOSLIN'S  "CALLIE  I." 

Cup  winner  of  the  Brunswick  Foxhound  Club's  field  trials  in  1  899.      A    granddaughts 
•of  Joe  Forester. 


lUDGEC.  FLOYD  HUFF'S  "MAJOR  ROCK. 


JUDGE  C.  FLOYD  HUFF'S  "DUDE. 


Webster  Family  Librany  of  Veterinary  Medicine 
Cummings  School  of  Veterinary  f/iedicine  at 
Tiiits  University 
200  Westboro  Road 


